Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom
by marinoa
Summary: Having once refused to obey a frog, Prince Arthur is now forced to marry one. Both parties are unwilling, but even with the help of their friends, can they win against spells... and time? FrUK AU.
1. Once Upon a Time

_**Author's note**_: All those fairy tales. Kings promise their daughters' hands to whoever fulfils whatever tasks kings may set or find the missing princesses and thus get rewarded with their hand. I don't find it really fair; what if they and the princesses _didn't want_ to marry? But that doesn't happen in fairy tales. They are always willing.

Until now, that is. Please enjoy _my_ fairy tale!

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Prologue:**_

_**Once Upon a Time**_

Once upon a time, sometime and somewhere, there was a great kingdom of England. That kingdom was ruled by a mighty king, King Kirkland. He was widely known for his braveness and wisdom, and the legend has it that as youth, when he had just come to inherit the throne of England, he had had a heart of a lion; righteous and good, yet merciless to his enemies. That is why he earned his moniker, Lionheart. And even after the years kept passing by and the King kept growing older, he was still respected by his people, and still called by the name he had gained in his younger days: King Lionheart.

There are hundreds of tales that could be told about King Lionheart, but this story isn't about him. You see, Lionheart had four sons, the three oldest of which had already left the King's castle to live in their owns. But the youngest, though already a young adult himself, still lived in his father's home, for he was his favourite son and was to inherit the throne after the King would pass away. His name was Arthur Kirkland, and he is the one who this tale is going to be about.

Prince Arthur was a young man, who resembled his father in many ways; he was brave and righteous, and he loved and was proud of his country with his whole heart. Like his father, he despised their neighbour kingdom – the kingdom of France – and its people, and he had also inherited his father's cynicism as well as his remarkable eyebrows that dominated his facial features.

But under those eyebrows were his eyes, bright green orbs that shined like emeralds and sparked with vividness. With those eyes, Prince Arthur was able to see the inhabitants of the world that were hidden from other people, and that was one of the reasons why the English people respected him; every English citizen knew that magical creatures existed, but among all the English, only one of their princes was able to see them.

Because it was general knowledge to all the English that supernatural things existed, it didn't really surprise our Prince when he, yet at his teen years, once met a frog that could speak.

The young Prince was just returning from a walk with his father that they had enjoyed in a forest, when at the gate of London, the capital of England, they saw a frog sitting and apparently waiting for something. As soon as the King Lionheart and Prince Arthur were close enough, the frog, green like the Prince's eyes, greeted the royalty with great politeness. Being the gentlemen that they were, the King and his son returned the greeting and inquired what the frog was doing at their gate. On hearing the question, the green creature turned its yellow eyes at the young Prince and spoke.

"I have heard, my Prince, that your bed is the softest in the whole land, and my humble wish is to experiment if the statement is true. What I ask is to sleep this following night beside you in your bed. I'm a mere poor frog, and nothing more do I ask from my miserable life."

Now, you might have guessed that our Prince was not really keen on the idea. He didn't see any reasons why he should grant the frog's wish, because firstly, he could tell the frog straight away that the statement it had heard was wrong, for his father was currently going through a phase that made him believe his son should know what it felt like to sleep without a mattress, like poor people had to. And secondly, well, the Prince was young and hadn't yet fully obtained the manners of a perfect gentleman he was to be. That's why he answered the way he did.

"Hell no."

His father, rather naturally, did not approve his son's behaviour – he was a prince, not a selfish bandit!

"What kind of a fucking answer is that!" the King yelled at his son. "Clean your mouth; that's not a way to respond to anybody asking something from you!"

"It's a fucking frog, why the hell should I let it sleep in my bed?" Prince Arthur shot back with a temper equal to his father's, making the King regret some of the manners he had once raised his son with. The boy had obviously learned too well.

"It's a bloody _frog_, Arthur, not a Frenchman asking to share your bed, so where's the damn problem?" And really, with most Englishmen there would be no problem after hearing this winning argument.

"Maybe this frog isn't as slimy as Frenchmen, but that isn't much said!"

The frog, unsurprisingly, did not approve the way the Prince had talked about it, so it decided to teach the brat a lesson.

"Prince Arthur," it croaked, taken offence audible in its voice, "Because you didn't want to help a poor creature like me, I'll reveal you something of your future. One day you will have to marry a frog!"

"What!" both the father and the son exclaimed, and the father immediately started to scold his son. "Look now what you have done!"

"Eww, take your creepy spell back!" young Prince screamed in horror, but in response to that, the frog's yellowish lips merely stretched into a sly, evil smile. "This spell will evaporate only when that frog you are to marry kisses you without any knowledge of this curse and pressure from you or others, of his own free will that is."

"No!"

But the frog, with a last, croaking laughter, had disappeared.

So this is how far in the past the roots of my tale lie. Now that it's described we can move onto the actual story.

And so, many years later...

X


	2. Ten Years Later

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter One:**_

_**Ten Years Later**_

"What, you're going riding again?"

Arthur turned around to see one of the few people in the whole castle who dared address him informally, impolitely even, and snorted at his young Italian stableman. "What else do you think I'm saddling a horse for?"

The stableman, Romano was his name, grimaced and went back to grooming a beautiful, black mare. "Whatever, but be careful this time. Last time you were riding, Macbeth returned looking like a fucking zebra with her scratches," he said, referring to the same dark brown mare that Arthur had just done saddling.

"Yeah yeah, sure."

Many years had passed since the fatal 'speaking frog' incident, and in the age of twenty-three Prince Arthur had turned into a fine young man. He was still pretty much the same he had been back those ten years ago when he had met the damned frog, but now that he had got over his teenage years, he had become a true gentleman – most of the time, that was. He had matured, both mentally and physically, which hadn't been ignored by the young ladies in the castle; his body was fit, and his emerald eyes were more vivid than ever. He had perfect manners when they were needed, and his less gentlemanly side the young ladies of nobility had never even seen.

But Arthur himself wasn't that keen on occasional balls, which were practically the only places where local nobility could acquaint themselves with him, and he wasn't really interested in interacting with those people anyway. He was more of the type that liked to make long horse rides in nature or read books in the peace of his own room or the library of the castle. Dealing with the servants of the castle was enough of social life to Arthur, he needed nothing more of that.

In fact, that particular day he had chosen to go riding because Veneziano, the younger brother of Romano and Arthur's personal groom (Arthur's father had found it very amusing to make the annoyingly happy, fussy and helpless Italian Arthur's groom – to cheer up his days as he himself claimed but Arthur knew it was just to wind him up), had got to the Prince's nerves by not letting him read in peace, blabbering of best surrendering strategies for different situations. Woods were way more peaceful places, so Arthur had even taken his book with him; who knew, maybe he would find a good spot to finish reading his tale about glorious knights and maids and unicorns.

The sun was high as Arthur and his mare left behind the stone walls of the castle and galloped through meadows into the forest. Arthur held tight the reins and enjoyed the summer wind hitting his face and messing his short, blond hair as the meadow changed into trees. The forests nearby the castle weren't unfamiliar to him, and so he felt no fear of getting lost, even though the woods were unbelievably large and covered a huge area. Arthur knew his way there.

After riding for well more than an hour, Arthur finally saw a small, charming clearing among trees. It was warmed by the sun, and no other sounds but chirping of birds and gentle rustle of wind in the trees were heard, so Arthur thought it was an ideal place for reading his story. He let Macbeth wander around the place freely, for the calm horse would not run away for nothing, and chose a spot under a huge oak tree. There, in the shadow of foliage, Arthur immersed himself into the story.

Lord knows for how long he sat there lost in his tale, but sudden alarmed neighing of Macbeth shook him back to the real world. He lifted his eyes from the text just in time to see his horse dashing into the woods and leaven him there, sitting dumbfounded under the oak.

"What the hell?" he uttered, jumping to his feet. The mare was gone; there had to be something very dangerous if she had got that scared. Slowly slowly, Arthur put the book back into his bag and drew his sword out of its sheath. He heard nothing unusual, but there _had_ to be something...

He felt a warm breath tickling his neck and his heart skipping a beat, Arthur swirled around ready to strike. His sword hand, however, froze in the middle of the movement as he saw what had managed to approach him without him noticing.

Heavenly blue eyes stared intensely at the Prince, and his breath got caught in his throat. There, just few inches from him, stood a gorgeous, glimmering unicorn with a long horn pointing towards skies. Arthur held his breath, unsure of what to do; he had seen a unicorn only once before in his life, so they weren't a daily thing even for him. But no matter how beautiful the creature was, Arthur knew unicorns could be mean and treacherous, too. If he made a wrong move, he was as good as dead.

But the unicorn didn't seem unfriendly. It whiffed the English Prince and gave a small neigh. Unable to resist, Arthur carefully raised his hand and gently caressed the forehead of the magical animal; the unicorn responded with friendly sounds.

Suddenly it shook its mighty head and took few steps backwards, turning around and showing its back to Arthur. Completely absorbed in the magical blue eyes, Arthur followed the unicorn when it cast an encouraging look at him and started pacing into the forest. Usually Arthur was careful and prudent, but there was something in the eyes of the unicorn that made him forget everything else and follow the creature without question. To our Prince's defence it can be said that so would have any other person done, having been switched places with him.

First it was easy to follow the beautiful unicorn, but after a while it started pacing faster and faster, and unlike Arthur's, the growth of the forest didn't seem to affect its steps at all. And so, in a fraction of a second, the unicorn had suddenly disappeared and Arthur found himself alone in the forest, not being able to hear, let alone see, the magical animal. As he whirled around to locate himself, the poor Prince realised he had absolutely no idea of his whereabouts or from which direction he had come from.

"Oh, shit," was His Royal Highness' opinion on the matter.

How could he have forgotten everything he knew about unicorns – that they were dangerous creatures? He should have kept his sense sharp instead of letting the unicorn's magical eyes affect him much enough to make him follow it against his better judgement. Look at him now! He was utterly lost, without his horse, and with no provision to survive, and as if time itself was playing it against him, the sky had gone dark and the evening was already falling. Silently cursing himself, Arthur tried to decide what he should do, and, in the lack of anything better, randomly chose a direction to walk. Sooner or later he_ had to_ stumble upon human residence or at least the end of the forest... if wolves or bears didn't eat him before that.

His mind occupied with such joyful thoughts, Arthur made his way through the forest. The ground was difficult to proceed, and without an actual destination, the Prince's energy was quickly drained. Exhausted, he cut some branches and made himself rather poor a hut, into which he crawled and lay down, in vain attempt to get some sleep.

Regardless of how warm the day had been, the night that followed was everything but that. The hut didn't provide much shelter from the cold, and, as Arthur had soon discovered, neither from rain. Thus, as soon as morning light peeked through the self-made roof of the humble hut, the Prince crawled out of it and all starved, wet and shivering, continued his way to a randomly chosen direction that he hoped was the same he had followed the last night.

"I can't believe this is happening..." Arthur muttered as he fought against cold, hunger and undergrowth. His father, the aged King, was probably worried... or laughing his ass off at his son's idiocy. Either way, Arthur didn't feel like facing him when he got back to the castle.

Suddenly he stopped.

There was a Scent (with a capital letter). For sure, there was a lovely, wonderful Scent of _food._ And not any kind of food, but the Tastiest Meal Ever prepared in the whole history of England. (It is possible that it only looked like it because Arthur hadn't eaten for almost two days, and regarding his non-existing cooking skills, '_the tastiest food in England_' wasn't really much said anyway.)

For somebody who was starving, however, it didn't really make a difference whether the food was excellent or less excellent, and so Arthur started to make his way to the source of the delicious scent. Making sure not to lose the trail, Arthur finally began hearing distant talking and laughing, too, and hurried up his steps. The closer he got to the voices and the food, the less he paid attention to staying quiet; for sure there were some good English people preparing their breakfast and only happy to share it with their Prince. And even if they weren't, well, they _would_ share it anyway; English hospitality guaranteed that.

But Arthur was mistaken. He soon realised that the three people – three young men – he found at the clearing he stumbled upon were not English in the slightest.

"Oi, _hola_!" one of them chirped immediately on seeing the Englishman.

"Don't greet random strangers as if they were your friends, Antonio!" another one, a peculiar-looking red-eyed man, exclaimed and smacked the previous speaker's head. The third one, whose long, gorgeous blond hair immediately caught the Englishman's attention, turned around and on noticing Arthur, smirked wickedly. "_Oh là là_," he cooed, "What do we have here?"

Now, you can imagine how miserable Arthur felt on realising that he had ran into a Spaniard (he hated Spanish people almost as much as French), a white-haired freak whose accent he couldn't quite put a finger on and a fucking Frenchman, who, to make things worse, was stirring something in a big, steaming kettle. Immediately taking back his previous thoughts about the deliciousness of the smell, Arthur reacted to the situation in quite an understandable way.

"Oh, fuck you!" he groaned, actually speaking to fate or something alike, but not minding that the three inhabitants of the clearing apparently took his words quite personally – they deserved them, anyway.

Three pairs of eyes – green, blue and crimson – stared in silence at the Prince, visibly offended, until the owner of the red eyes got his voice back. "That's some shitty attitude you have, stumbling here and fucking cursing everybody. Get the hell out of here if we are too awesome for you to bear!"

Arthur blinked.

Being a prince, our Englishman had never have to tolerate such insolent behaviour save for his family (he was said to have a foul mouth but his brothers were the worst, really) and Romano, so facing three strangers – foreigners! – and being insulted by them completely out of the blue got him a bit dumbfounded for a moment. But Arthur, however, wasn't the one to be helplessly standing such treatment without a word.

"What the fucking hell is your problem?" he asked, crossing his arms and wondering if the three strangers hated their lives; being a prince, Arthur could sentence them to death for such behaviour.

"Oh, so it's us who are having problems?" the blond Frenchman uttered and rolled his blue eyes. "And here I thought it was you who rushed into our encampment and demand-" He paused, looking a bit puzzled. "Indeed, what do you even want?"

Two pairs of eyes now looked at Arthur expectantly (the ones that belonged to the man addressed Antonio were staring at what the Frenchman was stirring in the kettle) but the Englishman hesitated. What should he say? He couldn't admit that the scent of food had lured him to the clearing, nor could he, a prince, say that he was lost and needed help to find his castle... Except that apparently those three men hadn't realised who he was, so maybe if-

Arthur's stomach gave a loud growl.

The red-eyed man burst into laughter, while the Frenchman smirked knowingly. "Oh... I see. Figures, since you are clearly _anglais_," he said smugly.

Oh _well_. Starving or not, Arthur had his dignity. Collecting every last bit of it, he straightened his back and adopted his most royal expression to show those bastards how much above them he was, and not by his social status, but his very being. "In fact, I was wondering if you could tell me how to get to the nearest road," he spoke in his most polite tone, eyeing the three men haughtily. "And perhaps point the direction in which London is," he added after a small pause, making sure not to show any of the humiliation he felt for having to ask directions to his own town.

The red-eyed man was already opening his mouth for a surely shoddy retort, but closed it as the Frenchman placed his hand on his shoulder. Lifting an eyebrow elegantly as if he were a prince himself, he looked at Arthur with an amused smile. "We'll be more than happy to help you, but first you _must_ have some breakfast with us. I won't take no for an answer!"

Arthur frowned a bit at such, well, perfectly decent response, but didn't object; as the invitation was put like that, it was only polite from Arthur's side to accept it – even though it was only a veiled version of_ 'I know you're drooling for my food but too proud to say so, so I'm kind enough not to give you a choice and make you eat'_. Even if theoretically Arthur did want to reject the suggestion for principle, it wouldn't speak greatly of his manners to do so, thus what else could he do but sit down amongst the strangers and let them share their meal with him?

"Oh, pardon our manners," the Frenchman continued while pouring some soup into a bowl and handing it to Arthur, still overly politely but with less mockery now. "We haven't even introduced ourselves yet. My name is Francis, pleased to meet you."

"I'm Antonio," Antonio smiled warmly, but Arthur was pretty sure there was a tiny sharp gleam in his eyes.

"I'm _the_ awesome Gilbert," the red-eyed man announced proudly and looked at Arthur expectantly, as if waiting for an impressed reaction which never came.

"Right," the Englishman merely said. "I, uh, am Arthur." The first name wasn't enough of a tell-tale to reveal his identity, so Arthur could easily say it. To avoid possible further questions, he quickly continued, "So, what are you doing here in England? I can see you are foreigners, French, Spanish and- and..?"

"Prussian!" the man named Gilbert finished, at the same time mortified at such ignorance and proud of his roots.

Francis answered the actual question, taking a spoonful of his own soup. "Hmm, no specific reason. You know, just travelling around, seeing the world and seeking for our happiness."

Arthur didn't know; he was a prince and thus 'just seeing the world' had never been something he could just do. "Aha. I see."

Gilbert gave a small cackle on hearing this. "Yeah, I see you don't," he said. "If your face is anything to judge by, the thought has never even crossed your mind."

"Well, some of us actually have something important to do," Arthur said slightly defensively. _Like being a prince and... and that's about that_. Truth be told, Prince Arthur didn't really have that many responsibilities – the King preferred to be the one in charge of all important things, although he preferred having Arthur with him anyway, to learn how to lead the country. Shrugging, Arthur decided it was a good time for tasting his soup.

After he did just that, he almost began to wish he hadn't. Not because the soup had tasted bad, but because it had tasted so heavenly delicious that Arthur almost felt like he was betraying his own country by eating something so savoury made by French. Carefully making sure that no embarrassing sounds of pleasure escaped his lips, he finished the soup in moments and tried to come up with a correct way to imply he wanted more.

Luckily – or not – Francis had noticed how delighted Arthur had been to eat his soup, and with only an amused smile, he took the bowl of the Englishman's hands and poured some more tastiness in it. "Do have more," he said, giving the bowl back to the lost Prince. Before Arthur could thank him, he continued, "And now, _monsieur_, I believe it's your turn to tell _us_ what you are doing in a forest with no food and proper equipment with you."

"Ah... I just got slightly lost, is all."

"Slightly lost," Antonio repeated. "To get to the nearest road it takes a day's walk, and another one to get to London."

"Oh fuck," Arthur groaned and rubbed his temples. His father would kill him... not to mention Romano, if Macbeth hadn't found her way back home safely.

Gilbert raised his eyebrow. "It takes some skill to get _that_ lost," he said and laughed. "If you want to go to London, you were heading to totally wrong direction!"

"I'm starting to wonder if there's something apocryphal behind this," Francis said slowly, nodding in approval at his friend's comment.

"Well, he _is_ English," Antonio agreed, and all the three of them eyed the poor Englishman mistrustfully.

Nettled by such suspicions, the Prince crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the trio. "Cut the drama!" he snorted defensively. "It's not that odd; if you follow a unicorn, you can end up way further from intended location than I did!"

_Blink, blink,_ said all the three pairs of eyes to the universal truth Arthur had told. _Blink_.

"Are you saying that you followed a unicorn?" Francis then confirmed.

"Obviously."

The Prussian cracked up again. That was the second time he cracked up at Arthur during that morning, the Englishman noted in disapproval. "Heh, yeah right!"

"You must have spent a long time in this forest without any food," Antonio commented sympathetically, making the Frenchman chuckle.

Arthur angrily swatted the now empty bowl from his lap. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he yelled, "If you are ignorant enough not to know that unicorns do exist, it's not me you should be laughing at!" Really, every Englishman or -woman with even little self-respect knew that magical creatures were real.

"Oh, my sincerest apologies," Francis said cheerily and lifted the fallen bowl. His hand brushed Arthur's knee in process, causing the Englishman stir a bit from unexpected contact. "Is there anything else we should now? Next you'll be telling us you're the king of England or something."

_Not that far from the truth,_ Arthur thought to himself. _Speaking of which_... "Well?" he asked exasperatedly, "Will you show me the way to London or not?"

"That's the tricky question, mate," Gilbert said with fake seriousness. "You see, we weren't really going to that direction... Francis, what say you?"

"Hmm," the bloody Frenchman played along, thoughtfully patting his chin shaded with stubble with his forefinger, and Arthur gritted his teeth. "I don't really know... It _would_ be a trouble to change plans now, now wouldn't it? Antonio?"

Antonio looked at his friends disapprovingly. "What are you two talking about? Of course we'll help him!" The looks his friends sent the Spaniard clearly accused him of being a killjoy, but the Englishman started to feel gratitude... until the stupid Spaniard continued, that was. "As if we could let a mentally deranged lunatic wander alone in the woods!"

The three friends high-fived, leaving Arthur to rub his forehead in despair; he had a feeling his return home wouldn't go as smoothly as he had hoped and planned.

X

Author's note:

I am sincerely sorry for the foul language in this chapter and the whole fic. (But really, with Arthur, Romano and Gilbert all in here, what did you expect?)

But more importantly, thank you for the lovely, lovely response that the prologue got from you! You all made a certain authoress so incredibly happy... and also nervous! XD I do hope this fic can live up to your expectations and won't disappoint you... Anyway, thanks again!


	3. Happily never After

_Author's note:_ I really don't know what's gone into me, but here you go, another chapter! So soon..! O_o I'm spoiling you. Or something must be wrong. Or then I'm just that happy and want to spread the love on my birthday~!

Major thanks to everybody who commented this fic, you keep my motivation high! Now, on we go...

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter two:**_

_**Happily (n)ever After**_

_It could be worse_, Arthur said to himself. _It could be way worse_. Like, for example, he could be travelling alone, not knowing the right way back home, having no provisions. He could even end up robbed (not that he had that much things worth robbing) since there was safety in numbers which he wouldn't have alone. So, his situation was not bad at all.

Well, fuck it.

It couldn't get _any_ worse. Arthur would much rather travel alone, starving and even getting mugged, _anything_, as long as he didn't have to cope with the three bastards that were 'kindly helping' him by accompanying him to London.

It hadn't taken much time for Arthur to figure out his companions' characters; Antonio was a bit of a daydreamer, Gilbert turned out to be a loud ranter and Francis...

Francis was the worst of them by being an utter pervert and arguing just about _everything_ Arthur said. He used the forest to his advantage; whenever Arthur was about to slip or trip on something, Francis was quick to grab his hand or shoulders or waist (except for once when he had purposefully let Arthur stumble upon a tree root and fall into a pile of half-rotten mushrooms), and he did that also when Arthur wasn't even near to losing his balance. To boot, whatever Arthur said, the Frenchman either argued against him just to be a nuisance (because no one could _seriously_ believe that the French culture was superior to others and particularly to that of the English) or twisted the meaning of his words into something lewd. He was obviously doing all that on purpose, just to tantalise him, Arthur knew, but still it was impossible to ignore it and go on like nothing. No matter how annoying the triumphant smirks and amused laughters were when Francis had managed to draw a reaction from the Englishman, Arthur couldn't help yelling at him or arguing back. It was a _nightmare_, and the two other bastards only laughed at them and joked with the Frenchman.

Arthur _so_ hated them.

And yet... Well, not that he was jealous or anything, but the trio really seemed to have a great time and enjoy every step they took. On those rare moments when one of them actually said something sensible, Arthur found out tiny bits about their lives – like where they had been or what mishaps they had faced on their journey – and saw a glimpse of freedom they had and shared together. Those three really did have a strong bond between them, and even though Arthur honestly wasn't jealous, to him it was something that he had never been able to experience. Not that he had any particular need to.

Their little group stopped thrice during the day to have a proper meal, and even more times to enjoy small breaks, so evening fell upon them before the road was anywhere in sight. Even Arthur understood that it would be dangerous to continue advancing in darkness, but he still grumbled when they had to stop.

"Pfft, stop complaining," Gilbert said, starting putting up a tent with Antonio while Francis began cooking. "It's not awesome. Half a day less or more, what does it matter?"

"Well," Arthur said with a shrug, not really arguing; the Prussian was right in a way. "The sooner the better."

"It reminds me," Antonio started and smiled cheerily at Arthur. "Where are you hurrying so? You still haven't told us anything about yourself."

"There's no need to. We are going to part anyway as soon as we see the gates of London."

"So what? We are still curious, and sharing experiences is fun."

"Last time I shared my experience you all but laughed at it!" Arthur retorted, referring to the unicorn incident.

"That's because you just came up with a random fairytale," Francis said with a lift of an eyebrow.

"No wonder you can't see them, with that attitude," Arthur muttered to himself, and Francis rolled his eyes.

Apparently the three friends came to the correct conclusion that Arthur was too stubborn to tell anything about himself, and the rest of the evening passed rather pleasantly. Although the Englishman really hated to admit it, the supper was delicious, and, maybe just the tiniest bit, he enjoyed the company too. The only stumbling block was faced when it was time to go to sleep, as it appeared that the tent was too small for three people to fit in without squeezing, even when one of the four at a time was to stay up to keep an eye on fire and the surroundings.

Arthur had no problem with his shift to be up, yet his turn was only after Gilbert's – who's turn it was first – but having to crawl into a too small tent with two other men was violating his personal space and thus disturbing him insanely. Especially when those two other men decided it was the right moment to call him cute and demand that he slept in between them, because they couldn't come to an agreement beside whom the poor Englishman should sleep. Arthur, of course, despised the solution, but as choosing one side over the other would be the same as admitting liking someone more than the other, he decided to be diplomatic and, for his own sake, not to sleep it the tent at all. Instead the Englishman stayed up with Gilbert for a while and then drifted into restless slumber right there on a humid, cold ground, wrapped up in a thin blanket.

Gilbert woke him up when it was Arthur's turn to be alert and got into the tent. The Englishman stared at the shelter longingly, for his muscles and bones were stiff and aching after laying on the ground, but then he steeled himself and carried through his shift conscientiously. But when he got into the tent to wake up Francis, he was too sleepy and his body too stiff for him to give a shit about any personal spaces anymore. And so he barely even heard the Frenchman's soft chuckle as he collapsed on the now free spot warmed by Francis' body and fell asleep before his head even touched the ground.

The following morning was miserable for Arthur anyway, because tent or not, the ground was still hard, and he wasn't quite used to such bed. (Arthur wasn't spoiled by any means regardless of his status, but although his bed lacked pompous luxury, it was way better than bare ground.) Tired, joints cracking and muscles sore, the Prince ate his breakfast in silence and was more than glad to find his companions less verbal than they had been the previous day; Antonio, who's turn to stay up had been last, looked half-asleep despite his smiles, and Francis looked less bright too. Only Gilbert appeared like he had actually slept well – which, he was glad to explain, was because Prussians were not sissies like the others seemed to be.

The mood of the small group, however, improved after packing up the things and moving on, and the journey continued pretty much like it had the previous day. By afternoon Arthur and his convoys finally reached the road, after which proceeding was far easier, and even though the Englishman had tried to convince the three friends to go and continue their own journey, they had insisted on escorting him to London.

"Might as well see the city now that we are here," Gilbert had said with a shrug, and that had been the end of the conversation.

The closer the group got to their destination, the more people they met on the road. It made Arthur uncomfortable; the citizens would most likely recognise him, and he wanted to avoid all the fuss that would possibly emerge. Luckily his appearance had got somewhat ragged after two nights in the woods, and wearing Gilbert's cloak, he was hardly paid any particular attention to – aside a few condescending looks that he received. Arthur was thankful for that, but at the same time he found it somewhat annoyingly unfair that even though Francis, Gilbert and Antonio had spent likely even more time in the forest than him, they still managed to look presentable enough; they looked like travellers, but Arthur looked like a, well, very poor thing.

By the end of the day they had even seen some knights from the court, but they hadn't recognised Arthur, which the Englishman was glad for; he'd much rather arrive home on his own, not passively _brought_ by his men.

They had to spend one more night on the road before finally getting the first sight of London. The view of the town opened before Arthur's eyes like a long lost paradise – he would finally get rid of the three annoying bastards, his dirty clothes and the utterly undignified feeling of having to depend on somebody. He would be back home without further fuss and everything would be like it used to.

"Oh," Arthur started, sighing contentedly.

"Fuck!" cried Gilbert.

"...You just _had_ to say that, didn't you?"

"What is it, Gil?"

The Prussian fell on his butt and grasped his ankle, his pale face twitching in pain. "Shit! Fucking _shit_!"

Antonio knelt down beside his friend, worriedly patting his shoulders. "Gilbert, what's wrong?"

"I don't know! I think I sprained my ankle!"

"Damn it," Francis uttered and knelt down too, starting to rummage in his backpack. "Just where is the aid package?"

"Hurry up and find it!"

Francis stilled. "Oh," he uttered. "_Merde_."

"_What?_"

"It seems I forgot the aid package at out last camp place," the Frenchman said sheepishly, apologetic smile on his lips.

"Seriously, _amigo_," Antonio sighed and patted Gilbert's back again.

Arthur watched the whole circus silently. Of course something like this would happen just as he was about to get home. He wondered if it was the right moment for kindly thanking the three friends for their help and quickly fleeing the scene, but his gentlemanly nature strongly told him not to. Sometimes it just was a bloody nuisance being a well-mannered gentleman, wasn't it?

"Well what are you waiting for!" Gilbert snarled. "Go and fucking get it! All the pain ceasing herbs are there!"

"_Quoi_, _moi_?"

"You are the one who forgot it! Besides, do I look like I'd love to run there myself?" the poor Prussian yelled in pain, clutching his ankle.

"Yes, Arthur will go with you so don't worry," Antonio added helpfully.

"What, me?" Arthur exclaimed in horror. " Alone with that pervert? Not for all gold in England!"

"Indeed, but for _me,_" Gilbert spat. "Now fucking _go_, both of you!"

Such a plead left no room for objection, and Arthur did indeed find himself on his way back to their last camp place with the French wino. (Not that Arthur had really seen Francis drinking wine, but the man was French and that was enough of an evidence.)

"Well done," he complemented the said wino when the silence between them had stretched too awkward, and Arthur felt the urge to lighten up the mood.

Obviously failing, as Francis shot a glare at him and snorted. "If I recall correctly, it was you who took the package out of my backpack and wanted to inspect the herbs," he dryly pointed out. "_And_ promised to put them right back."

Oh, right. It _might_ have happened like that, too.

Fortunately the walk didn't take longer than barely two hours – although every extra minute was waste of time and energy and nerves – and the camp spot was easily found. They had camped out close to the road, so finding the lost aid package was not a problem; Arthur spotted it even before they had reached the place.

"I wonder why it hasn't been stolen," the Englishman muttered, but Francis merely shrugged. "Well, there _has_ been an awful lot of knights travelling today," he commented. "Perhaps everyone is just afraid of getting caught. Or then travellers find it highly suspicious when they find random herbs lying around."

"Your brilliance is blinding."

Francis sighed in irritation. "Do you really have to comment everything I say so sarcastically?" he asked.

"Oh right, why didn't I just say that the answer was rather obvious?" Arthur retorted, rolling his eyes. That Frenchman was seriously getting on his nerves.

"Shows something about your intelligence if you have to ask for such obvious answers."

"That's called a _rhetorical question_, frog!"

"_No_!" Francis imitated what the Englishman supposed was supposed to be his most sarcastic tone. "_Really_?"

"But of course a peasant like you wouldn't recognise one even if it was written on your nose," Arthur snorted scornfully.

"Pray pardon me, _your highness,_ but who do you think you are?"

"Your Highness," Arthur answered mockingly and yet very truthfully without the stupid Frenchman even realising that. He tossed the herb package to Francis and slid off his hood to brush his hand through his messy hair; it was rather warm a day to be wearing a cloak.

"Your Highness!"

Arthur was about to roll his eyes again at his companion's behaviour, when it struck him that the one who had exclaimed the words had not been Francis; the Frenchman wore a curious expression of puzzlement. Which could only mean-

"Your Highness! Is that you?" Arthur turned around, to the road, and saw two of his knights on their horses, watching him with disbelieving faces. "It _is_ you, Prince Arthur!"

Oh, splendid.

"_Your Highness_?" Arthur heard Francis hiss and turned back to him, uneasily biting his lip. "Prince, seriously? _You_?"

"Is that so hard to believe?" the Englishman responded a bit defensively, but was taken aback by the look in the Frenchman's blue eyes – they were... hurt, almost.

"Why didn't you tell us?"

Arthur didn't have time to answer – not that he would have had an answer in the first place – as the knights jumped off their horses and ran to them, bowing slightly. "Where have you been, my Prince? The whole England is worried about you! What happened?"

"Err, well," Arthur muttered, ill at ease for all the fuss. "Nothing much, really. I just- got lost in the woods and, well, was helped back on the road and on the way to London, so-"

That was when the knights seemed to acknowledge Francis' presence. One of them pointed at him and looking at Arthur, asked, "Is he the one who found you and was bringing you back to the castle?"

"Technically, it's me who found him, but, kind of, yes, him and-"

"Francis Bonnefoy, at your service," Francis said dryly, still somewhat baffled and nettled by the fact that Arthur was a prince and hadn't said a word about it. "I saved your Prince in the forest, where he had got lost after following a unicorn, fed him and gave him a shelter for the night, and was currently bringing him back to his father the King. Pleasure to meet you."

Arthur gritted his teeth; did Francis really have to be like that on such a moment? On the other hand, perhaps the Englishman did deserve it for keeping such a secret, but still, in front of his knights – his pride was at stake, damn it!

"Oh, a unicorn," one of the knights mused, and Francis shot a smug smile at Arthur. His smile, however, soon faltered as the knight continued, "You should be more careful with unicorns, my Prince, you well know how wicked they may be."

Arthur would have laughed at the Frenchman's expression – clearly he had expected the knights to laugh at the unicorn part – but the situation was far from funny; Arthur felt humiliated for being found like that. Now he would be taken back to the castle like a helpless princess, his father would laugh at him, he was sure, making jokes about princesses and their knights... Fuck his life. He sighed, exasperated. It couldn't possibly get much worse anymore, huh?

"Thank you, Mr Bonnefoy, for taking care of our Prince. Now-" The knights motioned towards their horses, "let us take off to the castle! You both must be extremely eager to get there."

"We _both_?" Francis repeated suspiciously.

"Of course!" the knights grinned and winked at the Frenchman. "Naturally you are aware of the prize awaiting you."

"Oh, right," Arthur muttered. It was just what his father would do, promise a prize to the one who found his son. King Lionheart was such a romantic deep at his very heart.

"Wonderful," Francis sighed and, giving Arthur a condemning glance, got onto a horse behind one of the knights, while Arthur was helped onto other horse with the other one.

The ride was rather silent save for the knights' chatting; neither Arthur nor Francis did feel like rambling, both sour about the turn of the events. As both of them remained silent, one of the knights decided to warm them up a bit.

"You must be incredibly excited," he commented, encouraging his horse into a faster pace.

"Who?" Arthur asked, being far from excited.

"Well, both of you. It is a huge step to anyone, after all."

The Prince frowned, glancing questionably at the Frenchman, who merely shrugged. "What is?" he asked warily.

"What is?" The knights chuckled. "You must be kidding, surely you do know about the prize, don't you?"

"We've been in a bloody forest, how the hell could I know about my father's whims?"

The unreadable yet stunned look the two knights exchanged was not missed by Arthur. "Well, this should be interesting," one of them said in a low voice, but both Arthur and Francis heard him and despite themselves, met each other's worried gazes.

"What..?"

The knight Francis was riding with couldn't restrain himself any longer. He burst into laughter, and soon his fellow joined him. "Oh dear," he said, "You, Mr Bonnefoy, might just get a bit more than what you've bargained for."

"You see, dear boy," the other continued, speaking to Arthur, "your father has given the order that whoever finds his son shall be rewarded with the Prince's hand and half of the kingdom."

"Which means you are getting _married_," the first one to speak clarified on seeing two disbelieving faces and trying to hold back the bubbles of laughter. "It has been proclaimed in the whole Kingdom."

Arthur's and Francis' eyes met again, and in one fraction of a shared moment the message sunk in.

"Oh the bloody fucking hell," Arthur whispered dully.

"That's it, stop this animal. Thanks for the ride, _monsieur_ Knight, I'm getting off here!" Francis announced, eyes filled with horror.

"I'm quite sorry, but I cannot disobey the King's orders."

"The hell you are sorry, just let me down and forget this ever happened! There were no witnesses!"

"Dear boy, you have much to learn about loyalty. Besides, that would make one of us the finder of the Prince, and as flattered as I may be, I already have a wife and two children."

"You can't do this to me," Arthur pleaded, but of no avail.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness, but I repeat, I cannot disobey our King. Besides, I must admit I look forward to seeing you settled down with somebody special."

"_Somebody special_, fuck you! I stumbled upon him in a forest! By _accident_!"

"Well, he does not look that bad of an accident to me," one of the knights laughed and winked, but even Francis couldn't force himself to smile.

And thus Prince Arthur learnt that no matter how bad things were, they could always get worse.

xXx

"Is your ankle any better, Gilbert?"

"Ugh, it's still throbbing, but not as sharply as before... I just wish those two bastards would drag their lazy asses here a bit faster."

While Francis and Arthur were (not) trying to come to terms with a certain piece of news about their newly planned future, Gilbert and Antonio remained at the spot where they had sent off the couple. Antonio had found in his backpack some bondages, which he had tied around his friend's ankle to ease the pain, but actual curing herbs were far more effective. Fortunately, although the Prussian's ankle was still hurting, the injury didn't seem as bad as it had first appeared. Thus, blessedly oblivious about the new turn of events, the two friends took it easy, lazily leaning against one another and gazing into the horizon.

"You know, it would have been more comfortable if we had taken off to the town and waited for them in an inn or something. Even if you jumped on one leg all the way to London, we would still be there before those two would even reach the camp place."

"True... Wow, Antonio, it seems my awesomeness is contagious. You are coming up with some cool ideas."

"It's still not too late to go if we wanted to."

"Do we?"

Antonio tilted his head back, inhaling deeply, looking at the blue sky above, and closed his eyes. "Nah... We don't."

"I've heard some crappy rumours about English pubs anyway," Gilbert agreed.

The two remained silent for a while, until the Spaniard cracked his eyes open and looked at the road. "Hey, look... Those knights over there are riding pretty fast."

"Probably caught some kind of criminal or something. Or are after one."

The two knights did indeed ride fast, and in no time they were close enough to make the two friends realise that the road wasn't too wide. As they moved to the side, the knights were in a distance in which Gilbert and Antonio could see there were people sitting behind the knights on the horses. No more than a couple of blinks later the knights were so close that the two friends could even count the teeth in the knights' laughing mouths... or recognise just who were accompanying the riders for their ride. For a moment the knights seemed to pass the Spaniard and the Prussian in slow-motion, during which two pairs of wide, shocked eyes with a tinge of puzzlement met another two pairs of equally wide and shocked eyes, which also had a terrified and pleading shade in them... particularly the blue ones. The green ones had more rage in them.

And then the moment was gone and the knights were riding fast-speed again, leaving two speechless, extremely confused foreigners behind to wonder what on earth their companions had done to be arrested by royal knights.

"..."

"..."

"There," Antonio finally started, still awe-struck, "did ride towards London two knights, two horses, and Francis and Arthur."

Gilbert looked after the riders, now only seeing a mere dust-cloud on the road. "And Francis' herb package," he added longingly. After a moment of respectful silence that followed the Prussian's words, Antonio sighed and shook his head. "We sent them off to get aid, but now it seems we have to go and save _them_ instead."

"If they got arrested because Francis was hitting on a knight _again_, I'm leaving him to rot in prison," Gilbert grumbled. "Let's get going."

X


	4. Kings and Frogs Do Keep Their Promises

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter Three:**_

_**Kings and Frogs Do Keep Their Promises**_

In every story and fairy tale that involved princes and princesses, kingdoms and spells, knights and dragons, the prince always got his princess, and the princess never failed to find her prince – depending on from who's perspective the story was told. Dragons and other villains were always defeated, spells would come to nothing every time and the prince would earn the hand of the princess and half of the kingdom, and so the happy couple would get their happily ever after.

The problem with Arthur's case was that the whole thing was just a huge misunderstanding; he would much rather die than let his slimy 'saviour' have his hand, and giving half of the kingdom to that bastard would be such a tremendous waste. Unfortunately, as it seemed, fate was against him, for his father the King was clearly too cruel to care about his son and save him from his unpromising future with Francis.

Though, to the King's credit, he was absolutely reluctant to give his son away to a Frenchman. At first, on Arthur and Francis entering the throne room (Arthur throwing the doors open and yelling profanities at his father), he had been incredibly pleased with himself, ready to rub the whole marriage thing in Arthur's face, but as soon as he realised that the Prince's escort was _French_ of all things, his smirk had all but faded. He glared at Francis from beneath his massive, grey eyebrows, perhaps hoping to expire the Frenchman with the power of his stare. As the disrespectful Frenchman, however, still insisted on living just to be a nuisance, the King finally spoke, for the first time after he had realised just who his son was supposed to marry.

"What the fuck," he muttered angrily, pacing in front of the young, reluctant soon-to-be couple. "Like hell I'm going to let my son marry a frog!"

Arthur's eyes lit up with hope. "I definitely agree!" he proclaimed, eagerly stepping towards his father.

"For once, so do I," Francis uttered sourly. "Though for different reasons than you, Sire," he added just the tiniest bit haughtily.

That, however, proved not to be the wisest thing for the Frenchman to say; the King speared him with his fiery stare, eyes burning with rage.

"What the fuck," he yelled angrily, "Like hell I'd let a Frenchman reject my son! Are you implying that the Prince and half of my kingdom weren't good enough for a frog like you? As if! You will accept my son's hand and you will accept it as a great honour!"

"Father-"

"Arthur, don't."

Francis groaned. "Like father, like son," Arthur heard him mutter.

"Silence!" the King roared – apparently his ears were yet to be affected by years – then sighed and calmed down a bit, evaporating his anger in slow exhales. "I only wanted to teach you a lesson, my son," he said quietly, walking over to Arthur and brushing his cheek with his aged fingers. "And maybe laugh at your expense a bit. I swear, had the possibility of you meeting a Frenchman in my country ever crossed my mind, I would have never given such an order. But," he added sadly, "I am a king, and kings cannot take back their promises. I am sorry, Arthur, but this man here _will_ be granted with your hand and half of the kingdom... whether either of you liked it or not. Believe you me, son, I'd sacrifice anything to save you, but not my own word."

Arthur's shoulders slumped, but touched by his father's sympathy, he uttered no word and seemingly resigned to the inevitable. Francis, too, sighed, defeated. "Then how about you keep your son and give me the whole kingdom instead?" he yet suggested half-heartedly, giving it one more weak try. The corners of the King's lips actually twitched up for a moment, and the monarch shook his head. "That's too much of a sacrifice for my son, too," he added with gentle taunt in his voice.

Arthur raised his hands to his temples, rubbing them lightly. _Just what have I done to deserve this?_ he asked himself. _What can I possibly have done to be forced to marry a frog..?_

_Wait_... Arthur frowned, getting a feeling of something important escaping his grasp. _A... frog?_

"Thus I announce you to be engaged to one another, Arthur Kirkland and Francis Bonnefoy. You shall give your vows in ceremony that will be held in one month from today," King Lionheart pronounced, sending off some knights to announce the merry news to the people in all England. "And you two, dismissed," he added, pointing at his sour son and his sulky fiancée.

Only when the heavy doors of the throne room closed behind the couple did Arthur remember. Of course, a frog! _The_ frog – sitting in front of the gates of London ten years earlier – asking for a night in the Prince's bed – casting the evil spell...

"Oh, fuck it!" Arthur groaned in panic, not noticing Francis' inquiring look. "I should have just let it in!"

Ignoring the Frenchman's curious expression the Prince turned his back to his brand new fiancée and cowardly all but fled to the safety of his own room.

Slamming the oak door shut behind himself and leaning against its reassuring hardness, Arthur took deep, slow breaths to calm himself down. Right – now he remembered everything; a frog's request all those years ago, his refusal, the frogs terrible curse. _"Because you didn't want to help a poor creature like me, I'll reveal you something of your future. One day you will have to marry a frog!"_ it had croaked, and oh, how Arthur wished he had followed his father's advice and let the frog have its own way, but no; he had simply _had_ to be 'young and punk' back in his teen years. And now he was going to pay for it – dearly. Arthur's heartbeat increased despite his attempts to calm himself; as what was now happening was all due to the curse, there was no way to escape it...

"_Croak_!"

Now, even though Arthur had inherited his father's bravery, anyone could be taken by surprise once in a while, and thus be Arthur forgiven for his scare. The Englishman yelped, jumping on hearing rather loud a croak in his presumably empty bedchamber. "Who's there?"

"Give it a guess," a croaking voice answered from the depths of the dim room, and Arthur didn't need much effort to recognise the intruder. He strode to his bedside table and hastily lit a candle, letting his eyes roam around the room – and there it was. Luxuriously like a king in the middle of the Prince's bed sat a certain contented frog, mischievously gawking at the startled Prince.

"Howdy," it casually greeted.

Arthur stared. "_You_," he half groaned, half spat.

Had the frog had arms and shoulders, it would have probably shrugged. "Don't act so surprised. My visit was to be expected, wasn't it?"

The Englishman didn't say anything, just kept opening and closing his mouth like a fish in the air. The frog was right of course – Arthur should have known. Should have _remembered_. That, however, wasn't important; whether or not the Prince had kept in mind the frog's curse, it wouldn't have changed anything. The curse was there anyway, and the Prince, _prince_, King Lionheart's son, was at a mere frog's mercy. Never before had Arthur felt as humble in front of anyone or anything as before that frog that afternoon.

It took him a moment to find his voice again, and as soon as he regained it, he put it to good use, saying the only thing he was in position of saying. He looked deep into the frog's bright yellow eyes, trying to reach whatever humanity there might be. "_Please_," he whispered hoarsely, despair making his voice shake.

But apparently there was no such thing as humanity in the frog's vocabulary. It merely laughed its croaking laughter and took a better position on the bed. "I would have expected a little bit more of a prince's bed," it said tormentingly casually.

"Please," Arthur repeated through his gritted teeth, desperate. "I've learned my lesson!"

"Have you?" the frog asked. "I'm not convinced in the slightest. Tell me, isn't that a Frenchman you just left totally lost in a strange castle all alone?"

"I-" Arthur started, but cut himself off; what could he say to that? "I'm sorry," he said instead of defending himself. "I truly am... But neither of us wants this marriage! Please, be so kind and cancel the curse!"

The frog grinned with all the width of its yellowish lips. "I cannot remove the curse," it explained. "Back then I already explained how to do it. Your new 'frog' has to kiss you of his own free will, without you telling him about the curse or even as much as hinting anything. He needs to _want_ to kiss you."

"That's impossible!" the Englishman groaned, knowing that despite his pervertedness, Francis would never want to kiss him. Given that Arthur would allow him to, of course.

The frog bored its eyes into the Englishman's and stretched its lips into a smile. "Dear Prince," it said. "I cannot help you with that. In fact, I came here only to wish you great happiness in your marriage. Good luck!" And with those words and obnoxious laughter, the evil, green creature disappeared as if it had never sat on the royal bed in the first place.

All strength the Prince possessed seemed to abandon him, and sliding down on his knees, Arthur hid his face in his arms. This was the end of him...

Arthur didn't leave his chamber that evening anymore, and he stayed there late into the noon of the following day. When he finally crawled out of his haven, he had dark circles around his eyes and all in all, his appearance was rather miserable and messier than the usual. His groom Veneziano (who was a living proof of Italians being useless) started fussing around him as soon as Arthur showed his face in the dining room where the Italian had been airing the heels, but the Englishman wasn't in the mood to deal with it. With only few words he asked about Francis' whereabouts and headed to the directed way, determination slowly building up in his steps.

He found Francis at one of the large balconies of the castle, busying himself with inspecting the small garden displayed there. Unintentionally, Arthur halted to observe the sight presented to him. Francis was alone, and he looked just as lost as Arthur had been only a couple of days earlier in the forest. He was clad in fancy clothes that certainly hadn't been his, and the Englishman snorted quietly; although the material and style of the clothes were that of the English, that Frenchman managed to wear them in a way that announced him to be a foreigner.

Apparently Francis had heard the snort, for he turned around and spotted Arthur standing at the balcony entrance. "Like what you see?" he asked jokingly, cracking a small, humourless smile, and Arthur snorted again, turning his eyes away. Seriously, when one wore a tunic, it was supposed to be buttoned up, not reveal the neck and half of the chest... _Typical French_.

"Bastard," he answered and stepped on the balcony.

Francis crossed his arms, lifting one of his eyebrows, unamused. "Bastard, me?" he asked. "Oh, okay. And here I thought that hiding your royal identity, getting me kidnapped with you, getting engaged to me and then finally leaving me all alone in the castle without even pointing a direction to guest rooms would make _you_ the bastard."

"It wasn't my fault you were taken to the castle with me," Arthur mumbled, but truth be told, he felt a pang of guilt for leaving Francis without a word all alone in the castle the previous night.

Francis didn't respond and turned to gaze at the view. The balcony gave to the central market place of London. It was full of market stalls, some of which bigger, some smaller, and the area was crowded with people and domestic animals such as chickens, pigs and cows. Arthur sighed and walked to stand beside the Frenchman, a disturbing feeling of uneasy guilt and something else nagging at him inside. For a moment he said nothing, either, and looked down at the market place. It had always fascinated him how so many people of different kinds could fit in so – relatively – small area. And those were his people, all English with only few exceptions. One day, he would become their king.

"They are talking about us," he said matter-of-factly. "Father said that our en- engagement... has already been announced. We'll even have an official celebration."

Francis only let a snort at this, effectively preventing Arthur from attempting to continue the conversation. Finally he turned to look his unexpected fiancée in the eyes. "So, now what? I mean, you haven't yet swallowed this whole marriage thing, have you?"

Arthur met the blue eyes proudly, sensing some disregard in them and not wanting to appear weaker. "Of course not!" he snorted. "That's why I wanted to see you. We need to-" he paused in order to make sure there was no one hearing them, "We need to come up with a plan of some sort to avoid the- the marriage."

Francis lifted his eyebrows, managing to make the gesture look overly elegant together with his fancy clothing. "I'm curious," he said. "Do tell me more."

Arthur gritted his teeth, getting both annoyed at Francis and frustrated at himself for not having a plan yet. "I said we need to _come up _with a plan, not that I _have_ one!"

"Pity."

A moment followed during which neither of the men uttered a word, until Francis began speaking again. "Your father will never change his mind, that much is for sure."

"He bloody well won't," Arthur agreed grumpily. "So we have to come up with something... subtle."

"Mm," Francis mused. "A mysterious disappearing."

"That's hardly subtle."

"An accident, then."

"That's too obvious, too."

"Well why don't you try to give an idea if you're so clever, then?"

Arthur gave the Frenchman a dirty look, then started to think aloud. "It has to be something that no one can suspect was planned beforehand, otherwise it'll dishonour my father as a king..."

"Gilbert and Antonio could kidnap me. We could make it look like someone was jealous over you and wanted me out of the game."

"Hm, maybe... But a lot of fuss and troubles would ensue. Someone might get suspected, and naturally my father would have to organise a search for you and your kidnappers, and were you found, those two would get executed."

"True. Though I need to get in touch with them later, anyway."

"Mm. Speaking of them, I hope you realise it'd be the best if we shut up about them."

"Pardon?" The Frenchman's voice had got edgy, and Arthur hurried to clarify himself.

"I mean, to everyone else. Otherwise, knowing my father, I'd end up with fucking _three_ spouses."

Francis uttered a laughter, undoubtedly imagining the pictured scene in his mind, and Arthur snorted. They wordlessly watched the crown below them, lost in thoughts.

"Well, let's consider that accident again," Francis suggested after a while. "If it happens for example... in woods. Imagine. A horse-riding accident, or attack of a wild animal and say, my body would never be found..."

"A hunting accident!" Arthur exhilarated, starting to get hopeful. "But wait, no. That would never be believable. I mean, we obviously hate each other. Half of the castle heard how we proclaimed our unwillingness to get married! If you suddenly disappeared... too suspicious. Hell, I would be suspected for secretly assassinating you or something!" Despite himself, Arthur couldn't help uttering a laughter at the thought.

Francis looked at the Prince, unimpressed. "I don't see a problem here," he said calmly. "We simply have to start pretending that we like each other and want to get married after all."

Arthur looked at the Frenchman, stunned. Then he laughed again. "Do you think that's possible?"

Francis obtained a hurt expression and crossed his arms. "It can't be _that_ hard," he pouted, then got serious again. "But, we have one month before the wedding. That's plenty of time for you to fall all head over heels for me."

"To _pretend_ that I'm _starting_ to _like_ you," Arthur sharply corrected and shot a glare at Francis, who, perhaps for the first time that day, gave a genuine grin. Arthur smacked the man on the shoulder, starting to feel his face colouring for some reason, and the Frenchman chuckled heartily. "And less than a month."

"But remember, the progress has to happen slowly to be believable," Francis reminded him before they separated to different rooms; Francis had been given his own chamber near to Arthur's.

"Yeah, yeah," Arthur answered and closed the door after himself. He should be feeling relieved by then, they had come up with a good plan after all, but something kept disturbing the Englishman. Only when Arthur started preparing for bed did he realise what it was: there was a curse upon him – which meant that despite all plans, no matter how brilliant they were, he _would_ end up married to Francis unless the Frenchman kissed him before the ceremony.

"Great," the poor Prince mumbled, pulling his blanket to cover his face. "Bloody brilliant..."

xXx

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Someone must be mistaken. There's no way they had fallen in love so suddenly!"

"..._That'_s not the essential problem!"

While Arthur and Francis were teaming up in order to separate, their two friends had heard the jolly news, too. And it had been quite a piece of news; Gilbert and Antonio, after finally arriving in London, had gone to a pub to decide what to do next, and had there heard the news that excited the whole kingdom. They had learnt that their best friend Francis Bonnefoy was to be married to their new acquaintance Arthur Kirkland, who just happened to be nothing less but the Prince of England.

"Seriously, that guy..." Gilbert grumbled while the two friends walked towards the market place. "He's got some nerve, going and seducing the fucking _Prince_ of England! That's a bit too much, even for Francis."

"It's clear that his ambitions are getting higher and higher at the sector of seduction..."

"And who would have guessed for that goblin to be a prince of all things..."

A thoughtful silence took momentarily place between Antonio and Gilbert as each philosophised their own line, until Gilbert spoke again.

"We need to find them somehow."

"_Finding_ is not a problem," Antonio said dryly, nodding towards the castle. "But getting to _speak_ with them is another thing."

"Nah, nothing is impossible for the awesome me. We only need a plan for them to notice us."

"Let's just wait at the gate of the castle – it has to open, eventually."

"Great, Antonio," Gilbert uttered. "And what then, simply walk in?"

The Spaniard faced his friend solemnly. "Exactly."

Gilbert's lips widened into a grin. "Good plan! I like it – simple and effective. Why then, what are we waiting for?"

X


	5. Brothers in Plots

_Author's note: _Hello there, people! I'm here to inform you that I'm going abroad tomorrow for a couple of months, so I might not manage to update as neatly and frequently as I have till now. Anyway, stay with me (and wish me luck)! Now, on we go to the fourth chapter!

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter Four:**_

_**Brothers in Plots**_

"Prince Arthur! Sire!"

"I'm here, what is it?"

"Please do come with us, there is an issue you need to solve."

"An issue?"

Arthur turned to close the door to his chambers that he had so hastily left on hearing the guards' calls and followed them towards the staircase. Another door in the same hallway, however, opened as they passed it, and no one else but Francis peeked out. "What's with the fuss?" he asked languidly, yet managing to sound as if he had just been bothered in a most rude manner.

"None of your-" Arthur started out of sheer habit, but one of the two guards leading the way stopped to bow his head shortly. "There seems to be rather a problematic situation going on there that only the Prince can solve, Milord. Of course, as his fiancé you are welcomed to join us."

Arthur rolled his eyes but remembered that he was supposed to pretend starting to like Francis and shrugged. "Whatever, let's just go now, shall we?"

Arthur and Francis were led to a small hall, which was nearly empty save for some luxurious chairs. "This is where we accept visitors and those who wish to bring their disagreements to us to be solved," the Englishman explained as Francis had looked around and raised his eyebrow questionably.

"So, what is it?" Arthur repeated his earlier question.

"I do not know, Sire, but that is to be corrected. They are brought here any minute."

"They?"

As if to answer the Prince's question, distant voices coming from behind the closed oak doors reached the ears of the habitants of the hall. The voices approached rapidly, and the closer they got, the louder they became. Arthur frowned; there seemed to be a yelling contest being on, if the volume of the voices was anything to judge by.

Francis frowned, too, but for a different reason than the Prince. "Arthur, it's-" he started, but was abruptly cut off by the doors thrown wide open and a group of shouting men stumbling in; three prisoners and five guards. One of the captives was obediently following his guard, but four other guards were having a hard time with other two prisoners, who were constantly yelling alternately at each other and the guards holding them, wiggling to get free from their iron grips.

"Hands off me, I _live_ in this fucking castle!"

"Hey, what, you live here? Then what's your problem with letting us in?"

"Shut the fuck up, you! Like hell I'm letting in any random strangers!"

"And I've told you a million times you daft that we are not some strangers and the fucking Prince and Francis are expe- Ouch, what the hell was that for, we are _guests_ here!"

"Do not dare speak of our Prince in such cheap manner, you peasant!"

"Peasant! Is this called English hospitality, huh?"

"I told you to take your hands off me, you fucking retard! _I live here_!"

Arthur stared at the scene before him, totally dumbfounded. Curse him (as if he wasn't already) if it wasn't his stableman attempting to go and strangle one of his two new acquaintances who had recently helped him. Too speechless to react, Arthur just stared at squabbling Romano and Gilbert and smiling Antonio, who all seemed to ignore the Prince and his fiancé while the guards tried to calm them down. Shaking his head, Arthur caught a glimpse of Francis' face. The Frenchman was clearly attempting to hold back his laughter, with poor success. The Englishman watched as chuckles bubbled from that lean chest and mirth shined in the blue eyes as the Frenchman followed the scene before him. _He is probably that happy to see them again, _Arthur realised and instantly remembered that he was expected to say something.

"What is this, may I ask?" he asked matronly, raising his voice over the quarrel. It worked; Antonio moved his eyes from his fellow captives to Arthur and Francis, who were standing side by side, and let out a joyful cry.

"Hey, Francis, Arthur, good to see you!"

The Spaniard's voice made Gilbert notice other habitants in the hall as well, but his greeting wasn't as hearty as his friend's. "You two fuckers, what the hell is this your little stunt about?" he inquired, ignoring guards' angry exclamations. "And tell this little bastard over here that we told the truth and he's a real asshole!" he added, nodding towards angrily hissing Romano.

"What the hell is going on here?" Arthur asked sternly, but that was when Francis lost it and burst into laughter. And as laughter is the most contagious thing in the world, the Englishman couldn't help it and followed the Frenchman's example. All the stress and worry he had been enduing since he had been found by his knights was now releasing in form of laughter, and didn't it feel good! He felt Francis' hand landing on his shoulder for support, and unable to stop laughing, he leant against the Frenchman to prevent himself from collapsing.

Now it was guards' turn to be dumbfounded and they merely stared at their prince, waiting for orders about the captives. Being the carefree man he was, Antonio joined the laughter, but Gilbert and Romano weren't nearly as amused.

"Hey, you poor excuse of a prince, tell these shitheads to release me!" Romano shouted, Gilbert adding an angry "us", and Arthur managed to pull himself together.

"Guards, release them," he ordered, walking to one of the splendid chairs and sitting down. "Now, will you finally tell me what's going on? _Romano_, please start," he added quickly as all three captives opened their mouths.

"I was going to the market but as soon as I opened the gate these two idiots marched in like fucking kings. I didn't allow them and that albino started a fight, which was when those useless guards came and captured us _all _despite my explanations."

"We told you we are expected here but you put up a fight instead of letting us in," Gilbert grumbled.

Arthur looked at one of the guards, who spoke. "When I arrived, those two were fighting and didn't obey the orders, but instead used unacceptable language and offered no appropriate explanations, so we brought them all here."

"I see," Arthur said seriously. "Well, Gilbert is right, he and Antonio were expected, for they... you see, they..." Suddenly the Prince's mind was out of believable excuses why the Prussian and the Spaniard would be truly expected; he couldn't just take random commoners in his castle without a reason. Yet he couldn't come up with any, not for the life of his. And he certainly couldn't just blurt out that actually the two had 'found' him just as much as Francis had – one fiancé to deal with was bloody enough for him!

Thankfully Francis chose that moment to prove himself useful. "Arthur, are those the two the new servants you told me about?"

Gilbert raised his pale eyebrow at the word 'servants' but fortunately realised it wasn't his place to complain. The Englishman's face, instead, brightened.

"Yes! Exactly, they are the awaited help in the castle." And then Arthur fully realised how convenient it actually was; the two friends of Francis would be able to stay in the castle and help them with their plan, yet at the same time they could be useful and help with the work in the castle. Romano had long already complained how he had too much work for one person, and his brother totally needed someone to keep an eye on him so that he could complete his tasks without constantly getting in trouble due to his clumsiness.

"Gilbert, would you like to work at stables, or be the help of my groom?"

"Stables," the Prussian said immediately, and Arthur was thankful he didn't start his 'I'm-too-awesome-for-this' sermon.

"Lovely," he said, ignoring Romano's shocked face. "Antonio, is it okay for you to help my groom?"

"Sure!" the Spaniard replied happily. "Isn't it nice, Gilbert? I told you we'd make it."

"Splendid," Arthur said a bit dryly. "Now, go and make yourself at home. We'll meet you with Francis after dinner. For... further instructions. Now," Arthur looked at one of the guards, "Would you escort Antonio to Veneziano and show him his chamber? Thank you. Romano, take Gilbert to stables."

"Over my dead body," the Italian answered through his gritted teeth. "I'm not letting him in my stables!"

"What?" Gilbert asked. "Is _he_ a stableman, too?"

"Shut up, Romano," Arthur said. "You are always complaining you can't manage alone. Here, you have your help. And Gilbert, either you help Romano or devastate waste – that place is always open."

"Stop grumbling, Gil!" Antonio smiled. "Come on, this will be fun... And he's really cute, so you don't have a single reason to complain!"

Grumbling and gritting their teeth, Romano and Gilbert disappeared to one direction, while Antonio and his escort went to the other. The rest of the guards dissolved, too, of Arthur's request, and so the Englishman and the Frenchman were left alone. Francis moved to sit beside Arthur on another chair and grinned. "And here I was wondering how I could get in touch with them again," he said heartily. "You can always trust for them to show up when you expect it the least."

"Right," Arthur responded. "They can help us with our plan. Now that Gilbert is a stableman, he can arrange us horses if we need them without others knowing, and Antonio, as my groom, can distract people or cover us up when needed."

"Hmm," Francis said as they heard a bell announcing the dinner to be served. "Speaking of which, I haven't yet seen this Veneziano. You say he is Romano's brother?"

"Yeah, why?"

Francis chuckled. "You expose these two brothers to a great danger, you know. If Veneziano is even half as cute as Romano, Antonio will be all over him."

"In that case Romano will be kicking his ass. He is protective over his brother."

Francis smirked. "Perhaps... if Gilbert will give him time. Didn't you see how sparks flew between them?"

"No," Arthur answered nonchalantly. "How could I forget what a perverted trio you were..?" he muttered to himself and Francis winked. "We are called the Bad Touch Trio for a reason," he said suggestively.

"Really, now. What a silly name. Did you come up with it yourselves?"

Francis raised his eyebrow. "Doesn't seem to me that you are starting to like me," he pointed out teasingly.

"There's nobody watching."

"You never know," Francis said with a shrug. "During dinner, however, there will be. So get your ass off that chair and show me where the dining hall is."

xXx

"So what the fuck is going on here?"

All four, Arthur, Francis, Antonio and Gilbert, had occupied Arthur's bedchamber and were sitting at a table, the two latter ones observing the Englishman – or so it seemed to him. Arthur shifted slightly uncomfortably; the situation was like a parody of Francis introducing him as his boyfriend to his family that eyed him critically from head to toe to see if he was suitable partner for their precious Frenchman. "Well, as you can probably see, we are, err..."

"Well yeah, we can totally see," Gilbert uttered, crossing his arms over his chest with a hurt look on his face. "We see that you two dumped us on a road to run off to this freaking castle to live your _rich_ and happy ending as if _we_," The Prussian bored accusingly his eyes into Francis' and gestured between the Frenchman, Antonio and himself, "didn't even exist!"

"That's exaggerating," Antonio commented, the sharp gleam in his eyes that Arthur had briefly noted on their first meeting now evident. "I think it's Arthur's fault for not telling the truth to us."

"Stop dramatising, Gilbert," Francis said calmly. "That's not how it is and you know it, though I, too, am a little discontented about Arthur hiding rather important secrets from us."

Oh, fantastic, blame it all on him! Now there were three pairs of eyes instead of two glaring at the Englishman in rather an accusing way; the trio was clearly tightly knit and would not stand against one another. Arthur met the gazes proudly, lips tightly glued together; now it was his turn to be a little hurt. If those three men didn't understand that it wasn't safe for a royal to give himself away to complete strangers, he didn't have to explain _anything_ to them. If they wanted to hate him so bad, he would make it easier for them and act like the proud prince he was.

"Fine, fine," Francis, surprisingly, chuckled at the Englishman's expression (as if there was something funny about it!). "I suppose we cannot really blame you for that."

Antonio shrugged and smiled again and Gilbert regained his own relaxed self. He leant back in his chair and stretched. "Yeah whatever. But you still haven't explained us what happened!"

And so Francis explained everything that had happened from the moment the knights had found them till their fabulous escape plan. The two newly arrived fellows listened more or less carefully, making inappropriate comments every now and then and laughing their heads off at Arthur's mortified and Francis' blasé expressions.

"Oh come on!" Arthur finally snapped at them after a particularly lewd comment. "We only have to fake a little affection once in a while and that's that!"

"Of course," Antonio smiled innocently. "But that's not enough. You need somebody to spread _the _rumours."

Francis just couldn't stop himself from laughing at his friend then, but Arthur was, due to the generally unusual circumstances, just a bit too slow to catch the meaning behind the Spaniard's words. "_The_?" he asked.

Gilbert grinned and leant with overly scandalised look to Antonio, whispering loud enough for everybody to hear, "Did you hear, Toni? Last night I saw the Prince sneaking into his Frenchman's chambers!"

"Enough joking!" Arthur started, furious and ears scarlet, but Francis interrupted. "No, that's actually a very good idea. One of us should definitely sneak into the other's room a couple of times. Rumours of that kind are truly way more effective than what we could ever show in public. Not yet though," he added and smiled to Arthur, who sighed and rubbed his temples. "Hell, this is... troublesome."

"So, what else are we to do in addition to working and gossiping?"

Arthur shrugged. "As a stableman, you can equip the horses when the time is right without Romano or anybody else knowing. As a groom, Antonio can mislead Veneziano and others if we have to meet secretly in private. Aside that... make yourself useful. But remember, even though this is not some pompous, ridiculously etiquette-filled _Frenchie_ court," Arthur was that close to sticking his tongue out at the Frenchman out of sheer malicious delight, "you are considered servants, thus we can't really meet or chat openly."

"Nah, we are awesome enough to be sneaky without anyone noticing." The Prussian grinned and lounged his hand to hang in the air between the four men. "We will get Francis and ourselves out of here successfully. For the awesome plotters!"

Francis and Antonio immediately clasped their hands onto the Prussian's and looked expectantly at bewildered Arthur. "Come on, join in!" Francis urged him, and rolling his eyes, Arthur placed his hand on top of Antonio's, but not before reminding, "Remember, _not a soul_ must know."

"Great," Gilbert grinned. "Too bad we don't have anything to drink... this is a bit lame without it."

This time even Arthur gave a laughter along with the others.

X


	6. Plan of Action

_Author's note_: Here I am, darlings! Thanks for your patient waiting, it shall be rewarded! But before we go on, there is one extremely important thing I have to explain. I AM FROM FINLAND. Don't believe what my profile now says! And now that that's clear, off we take!

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter Five:**_

_**Plan of Action**_

Almost a week had passed since Antonio and Gilbert's arrival in the castle, and nothing worth mentioning had happened concerning The Grand Escape Plan or the Evil Curse. Well, nothing that _Arthur_ would ever mention, not even to save his own life. (If admitting his pathetic doings would somehow save a unicorn's or a faerie's life, he might consider it, but anything less was out of the question.)

What embarrassed the poor Englishman so was his rather sad attempt to confront the only condition that would make the curse come to nothing; to be kissed by Francis. What was particularly sad about that attempt was that, in fact, to be totally precise, it didn't even happen.

Arthur, being the proud Prince he was, had decided soon after their two friends' arrival that before any actions could be taken according to the escape plan, the curse had to be overcome – otherwise their plan would be of no use, pointless. Thus, when he once found himself alone with Francis in the library of the castle, the Prince had resolved to act. He had moved to stand right beside the Frenchman, who was flipping through the pages of an old book, and forced himself to look at him. After a moment Francis had languidly turned his eyes from the book to the Englishman and indifferently raised his eyebrows, as if silently saying, '_Yes, what do you want? Do speak; you're wasting my time._' But what Arthur could have done? Obviously he hadn't considered his plan quite thoroughly enough; he had no idea of what to do next. He couldn't kiss Francis to get rid of the curse, it had to be other way round to work, and there was absolutely no reason for him to kiss the Frenchman just because. Even though, from so close a distance, he had to admit that Francis _was_ very attractive with his blue eyes and light stubble and all... for a frog. Yes, for a frog.

And so, blocking all those thoughts, Arthur had just dumbly stood there and stared at the Frenchman, slowly starting to panic. Fortunately, for once luck had been on his side and the library door had opened letting in one of the maids. She had immediately noticed the couple and a small 'oh' had escaped her lips, effectively ending the awkward moment. That was what triggered Arthur to stumble away from the Frenchman's proximity while the maid excused herself and exited the library. Francis had watched all this with growing amusement and, after the maid had left, shaken his head and given Arthur a pitying smile. "I can see you aren't used to acting liking anyone," he had said, lips twitching. "Didn't I say we have to start showing affection slowly? _That_ was hardly subtle, Arthur. From now on, do nothing and let _me_ take care of it."

That had been humiliating, unbearably humiliating, but at least it had been a blessing in disguise that Francis had regarded his unsuccessful, poor attempt to be kissed as an attempt to fake attachment as planned. Also, it had been a lesson; obviously getting kissed wasn't that simple after all.

Now, the wit Arthur had inherited from his father, together with the humbleness he had recently learned due to the frog, made the Englishman resign himself to the fact that he had absolutely no idea of how to lure Francis into kissing him, and admit to himself that he needed help.

And who else would be more suitable for giving him a hand if not Francis' two best friends, who probably knew the Frenchman inside out? (Though, even if they weren't suitable in the slightest, which was also possible and even likely, they were the only ones to whom Arthur could turn for help – no one else did nor could know about the Plan.) So, basically, that was the reason why the second night since the embarrassing incident in the library the Englishman was not to be found in his bed.

Sneaking in the castle in the dead of night and staying unnoticed was fairly easy and nothing Arthur wasn't used to; sneaking in the castle in the dead of night and staying unnoticed with a sleepy Spaniard was another thing instead.

The Englishman had realised that during daytime it would be nearly impossible to tell about the curse and discuss it without Francis noticing anything, so he had to take advantage of the darkness that night provided. Too bad Antonio, whom Arthur had woken up and started dragging towards the stables, was not one for nightly trips like that. If he wasn't yawning as loudly as an elephant sneezes, he was stumbling over his very own feet if there wasn't anything better to trip upon. Miraculously, however, the two fellows made it to the stables without anyone noticing; Arthur knew his way in the castle better than the guards.

As the tradition had it, stablemen had their own residence attached to the stable building. It included three bedrooms and several smaller chambers for different purposes, and unless Romano had kicked Gilbert out of the whole house to sleep among the horses, the Prussian was probably occupying one of the bedrooms – which one, was the tricky part. There was no way Arthur was going to let his hot-tempered stableman wake up to any sounds... and not only to prevent the Italian finding out about the plan, but also because Romano was hellish to deal with when he was bothered from his sleep. (There were two things that got Romano absolutely furious and those were waking him up and maltreating his horses.)

"Hush, you stay here while I go and get him," Arthur whispered to Antonio when they stood at the stables. The Spaniard nodded drowsily and the Englishman disappeared in the building.

One of the bedrooms was on the first floor and the two others were up on the second floor, where Arthur knew Romano resided. Thus concluding that Gilbert was on the first floor – Romano didn't really let people close to him – the Prince sneaked to the bedroom door and as quietly as possible, peeked in. There was a lump on the bed, and closer inspecting proved the Englishman to be right; it indeed was Gilbert.

It took hardly any time to wake up the Prussian, who apparently was a light sleeper, and soon the three fellows found themselves in the actual stables where the chance of being taken unawares was relatively small. With one lantern giving rather little light, the three men listened carefully if there were people around, and on being convinced they were totally alone, Arthur cleared his throat and began clarifying the whole dreadfulness of the situation to Francis' friends.

At first it seemed hopeless; Gilbert and Antonio had considered Arthur mentally ill when he had told them about the unicorn, so in the end it was no surprise that they weren't too impressed with the Englishman's story about speaking frogs who cast spells at people.

"You are sleepwalking, aren't you," Gilbert commented flatly, starting to get annoyed for having been disturbed from his sleep only to hear fairy tales.

"Arthur," Antonio said softly, "If you want Francis to kiss you, you should just honestly say so instead of coming up with poor excuses."

At that point Arthur was ready to tear at his hair in agony, but managed not losing his temper. "Look," he said, drawing in a long breath, "You know that I don't want to marry Francis, and you know even better that he doesn't want to marry me. Hell, even if you don't believe me... Reason! Due to regretful accidence you three were forced to break off your journey and are now stuck in my castle. The only way for you to continue your way together with Francis is to avoid the wedding, but believe you me, if the curse won't be foiled, _that won't happen._"

Maybe it was the sincerity in Arthur's desperate eyes, or the acknowledgement of the existence of magic that was planted deep in the two friends' hearts, but in the end, they chose to believe the Englishman. They lived in the world of spells and magic after all... whether they believed in it or not.

"If it's how you say it is, this is very bad," Gilbert mused.

"The problem is that if he hasn't tried to kiss you yet," Antonio explained, "he either has absolutely no intentions of doing so in the future, either, or then he is so extraordinarily deeply in love with you that he doesn't have the guts to kiss you in fear of losing you."

"The former one, in your case," Gilbert added, seeing Arthur's baffled look. The Englishman shook his head. "What's wrong with him?" he muttered, slightly sourly. "He's fine with kissing people in all occasions but one; when he loves them. Well, or completely hates."

"It's not that simple," Antonio pointed out but Gilbert chimed in before he could clarify what he meant – not that Arthur specifically wanted to know.

"The essential part here is to make Francis kiss you," the Prussian said thoughtfully. "How can we make that happen..?"

"Hmm. Well, Francis has always been the mood-conditional kind..."

For a moment Arthur sat saying nothing, letting the two friends discuss the subject matter together. He felt oddly nonplussed; seeing how close people seemed to know one another inside out wasn't really something he had ever experienced, and that made him slightly jealous, even. Not that he was unhappy or disliked certain amount of solitude, but the status of a prince effectively kept other people at a safe distance from him – not only in a physical sense. He simply couldn't become close friends with anybody; because he was a prince, naturally everybody regarded him as one. That's why, Arthur realised almost startled, the company of Gilbert and Antonio and – dear Lord – even Francis was actually most welcomed. They didn't give a damn about who he was.

"Yeah, I suppose that's the best. Artie, you sleeping or what?"

Not even noticing the nickname, Arthur blinked, returning his wandering thoughts to the present. "Uh, sure. I mean- I'm not. Err, so..?"

"If you had listened, you'd know," Gilbert sighed like an exasperated tutor. "So we figured that it might be the best to wait until that engagement celebration of yours and see what will happen. Francis is the kind that can rather easily get carried away with sensations or atmosphere or stuff like that, so what'd be better occasion for kissing you than your own engagement party?"

Arthur's eyes widened. "In _public_?"

"Of course; he has no reason to do it privately when no one sees."

"I suppose..." Although the Englishman wasn't burning with desire to be kissed by the bloody frog, it still put him in a slightly bad mood that Antonio and Gilbert – and Francis obviously – seemed to take it as a matter of course that in normal occasions Francis wouldn't even think of kissing him. "And if he won't?" he asked somewhat edgily.

"Then," Antonio shrugged, "we'll meet again in order to find a way to make him."

Everybody nodded to that, and nothing much was left to say. Francis and Arthur's official engagement celebration was to be held in two days – if all went well, the greatest of Arthur's problems would be only a fading nightmare after that. The Englishman stood up and took the lantern. "I guess that's that then."

"Wait," Antonio said pregnantly, and he and Gilbert exchanged significant looks. The odd stern look that Arthur had already spotted few times in the Spaniard's eyes was now fully overt, and it made the Prince uncomfortable. "There is one thing we want to make clear. You see, Francis is our friend, and we don't want our friends to get hurt. So, make him kiss you – but do not even thinking of playing with his heart in any way. Have we made ourselves clear?"

Arthur could only stare at the normally so kind Spaniard and involuntarily shivered at the steadfast look in his and Gilbert's eyes. He nodded seriously, understanding it was no place for jokes. "Perfectly."

"Good," Antonio smiled again, and Arthur found it creepy how easily he went from kind to dangerous and back to kind again. "Finally back to bed, then!"

As the three fellows put out the lantern and took off to their chambers each their own way, nobody noticed a dark figure in a window on the second floor of the stablemen's residence.

xXx

Francis was in his element.

Despite loathing the reason of the celebration – his and Arthur's engagement – the Frenchman had been exceedingly excited the whole day before the party, and now, watching him, no one could have guessed that he had been snatched from a forest to royal halls. He was sailing all around the great hall with enough grace to make even most elegant prince jealous (not that Arthur was!), socialising with English nobility so suavely that no one could find an ill word to say about him even though he was known to be French, and looking simply said stunning in his outfit, which had been specifically tailored for him.

Arthur, occupying one of the three thrones, watched the Frenchman from afar and absently swirled wine in the glass he was holding, not really focusing on anything particular. It was his celebration more than anyone's, more than even Francis' because he was the Prince of the country, and yet he couldn't force himself to put on a smile and mix with the crowd. Of course he had, in the beginning of the party, accepted his people's congratulations and danced the first waltz with his now official fiancé, but it was like those little ceremonies had drained all his energy and now all he could do was sit beside his father and gaze at the rejoicing crowd.

The only one in addition to the celebrated couple who was unhappy was the King himself. He sat majestically on his throne, holding his grey head high and observing his court from under his huge, white eyebrows. But his, like Arthur's, eyes were fixed mostly on a certain Frenchman.

"I'd like to know what's the truth behind this Frenchman of yours," King Lionheart muttered into his beard, speaking more to himself that to Arthur.

"What do you mean?" his son asked idly, frowning as he saw Francis making a bunch of ladies-in-waiting laugh.

"Look at him," the King uttered, not knowing that that was just what Arthur had been doing the whole evening. "Look at his manners, the way he speaks and moves. He even dances. His behaviour is equivalent to that of nobility."

"Yeah..?"

"'Yeah?' Don't you wonder what a French nobleman was doing in our woods?"

Arthur shrugged, his mind just a bit too foggy from tiredness to be interested. "Well maybe he's just a mere commoner who's naturally that charming," he blurted, earning a stern glare from his father.

"No more wine for you tonight, Arthur," he said dryly, even though Arthur hadn't drank more than two glasses at most. The king turned to watch Francis again, and the two remained silent for a while, until the King spoke again. "It can't be like you suggested, because if Francis is just naturally gifted like that I would have to respect him, which I refuse to do."

Arthur mustered a small sneer and sank into his thoughts. He didn't really care about Francis' roots or his social rank, but now that his father had mentioned it, he realised that he didn't know anything about his fiancé. All he knew was that Francis had been exploring the lands with Antonio and Gilbert for quite a long time now. Well, it shouldn't even matter; the Frenchman would not become a permanent part of his life anyway.

The trail of thoughts took him to remember what he had agreed with Gilbert and Antonio the other night – he should go and see if Francis was in his kissing mood in favour of overcoming the curse.

Apparently Francis _was_ in his blasted kissing mood, because immediately on thinking so Arthur's eyes caught him kissing the cheeks of the giggling and fascinated lady-in-waiting. The Prince's eyebrow twitched. How dare that Frenchman – in their engagement party? That man had no civility! Kissing hands was natural, but cheeks?

"That's what they do in France."

"Huh?"

The King gave Arthur a twisted smile. "Kiss on the cheeks. A habit of Frenchmen." He said it in a tone in which most people would talk about bathing in sewage.

"Balls! He's just using it as an excuse to be his perverted self," Arthur responded, grumbling.

King Lionheart looked at the Prince and suddenly smiled gently, slightly sadly, smiled as a father to his son. "Go there," he suddenly encouraged his son. "This is your night after all."

"You know that I'd rather not, father."

The King winked and patted Arthur's hand. "Go. Show them who's the Prince in this hall."

How could Arthur reject such kindness? Despite having a shell around him, the Englishman had a soft heart, and so he rose from his throne, walked the few steps down and headed towards the Frenchman. He would have obeyed his father even if he hadn't have a curse to get rid of.

On his way to Francis Arthur caught a glimpse of Antonio, who was chatting happily with Veneziano on their place at the wall, and the Englishman couldn't help smiling to himself. Antonio might not have been the very best influence on the Italian, for both of them loved to sit back and take a nap, but at least now Veneziano had someone to help him out when he had messed things up. It was a blessing that the Spaniard seemed to possess an endless string of patience.

Glad that Antonio was so occupied with the younger Italian – now he would see neither Arthur's possible victory nor his likely defeat about Francis – the Prince approached his fiancé with determination yet having butterflies in his stomach. Aware of the people's gazes that followed him, Arthur halted within a few steps from Francis, who was currently standing alone, yet too busy winking to some lady to notice the Prince. Arthur forced on a smile and cleared his throat, which was when the Frenchman deigned to notice his fiancé.

"Arthur," he greeted, his blue eyes shining with mirth the celebration had awakened in him.

"Hi," the Englishman responded, stepping a bit closer. Damn, he so hated it when people were staring at him when he needed it the least... when he was unsure about himself!

Fortunately Francis apparently somehow sensed Arthur nervousness, for he extended his arm for him. "May I get this dance?" he asked politely, smiling slightly. But his smile wasn't the same it had been with the ladies before.

"You may," Arthur said a bit coolly and accepted the hand.

In the swirls of the dance no one could hear what they were talking about, so Arthur took the advantage of it. "You should at least _pretend_," he hissed through his teeth as soon as they took the first steps.

"What do you mean?" the Frenchman had the nerve to ask while guiding them into a twirl.

"_Them_," Arthur jerked his head towards random ladies, the motion small enough to stay unnoticed by others. "You smile to them with shining eyes but when it comes to me, your face just falls."

Francis laughed heartily. "Oh," he said, stretching the sound. "Is that jealousy I hear~?"

"Bollocks!" Arthur all but spat, appalled by such a ridiculous statement. "But if you haven't realised it yet we are _engaged_ and supposed to like one another, so it's anything but fucking appropriate of you to flirt with everyone else!"

"Oh, don't take it seriously – no one does!"

"I bloody well take it seriously, the rest of my life depends on our plan being successful and this doesn't look like progression to me!"

Arthur's tone was angrier than it should have perhaps been, but he couldn't help it; Francis just was such a prick. The Frenchman's eyes darkened at his fiancé's outburst and when he spoke, shimmering frost covered his words.

"You speak like you despised me with every fibre of your being," he hissed, still managing to maintain a smile for the public. Fortunately many other couples had entered the dance floor too, so less and less interest was shed upon the Prince and his supposed beloved one. "You don't have to love me, not even particularly like me as I certainly do not like you, but still I find it rather offending how you speak of me – like I was nothing more than scum. Before accusing me of anything do take a look at yourself first and perhaps you'll see just _why_ there's no 'progression'!"

Arthur gritted his teeth but then mirrored the shallow smile on Francis' lips. "I guess we have to work really hard then," he said poisonously, "as it seems that we cannot even _pretend_ to like each other until we actually _do_."

"If our success truly depends on that, prepare to spend the rest of your miserable life with me," Francis snorted and spun them around for the last time with the music dying down. The two bowed to one another and smiled, and despite their bitter argument just a moment ago they stayed side by side not to arise suspicions. Arthur was already regretting his words in spite of his anger – he had been supposed to earn a kiss but instead he had got the Frenchman only mad at him. _This will be hard,_ he though, _this will be so hard..._

He spotted Antonio across the hall and their eyes locked for a moment. It was the seriousness in the Spaniard's eyes that made Arthur's heart sink in frozen worry.

xXx

"Well, how did it go?" Gilbert asked enthusiastically as soon as Arthur stomped angrily to the stables; stablemen didn't attend celebrations of the nobility, instead the Prussian had managed to persuade Romano into accompanying him to the commoners' party elsewhere. "Did he kiss you?"

"Kiss me?" Arthur's eyes were flaming with rage and disappointment. "He was bloody flirting with every single woman in the whole castle and you talk about him kissing me!"

Antonio, who had followed soon after the Prince, shook his head. "This will be hard, _amigo_," he said to Gilbert. "It seems that in this case, Francis will never even consider kissing Arthur were it up to him."

"Fine," Gilbert said after a short, thoughtful silence, as if accepting a challenge. "Luckily it's not up to him – it's up to us now! Franny will get what he bargained for – our awesome kick-ass plans will definetely get him not only kiss you Arthur but also _beg_ to have the permission to kiss you! Come here, Toni! We've got some plots to do."

X


	7. Secret Strategies

_Author's note: _Hi there... So yeah, I warned you that there might be a huge gap between updates, and for a good reason as you now see. I work on this fic whenever I have enough time, so don't worry. Besides, waiting for goodness is always worth it! _...Right?_ And those of you who might read my other fic The Nine Circles, I haven't forgotten about it either. Slowly but surely, it's coming. Everything is coming. So how about I shut up now and finally let you enjoy the story?

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter Six:**_

_**Secret Strategies**_

The wind played in Arthur's short, sandy hair as he encouraged Macbeth into faster gallop. By his side Francis, on his own horse, didn't drop out a step behind; neither of the two men was going to let the other one in front. It wasn't a race, really – it was just a matter of pride.

Pride – that was both Arthur's strength and weakness, as he well understood.

"_Apologise?"_

"_Of course! You have to start somehow, and sincere apologies soften a man's heart better than anything."_

"_You can't expect me to sincerely apologise to him! He is just as much in fault as I am, if not more."_

"_Well, _you_ can't expect him to kiss you unless you go and apologise to him!"_

"_..."_

"_Ha ha ha, touché! Ahem. Go and apologise, Arthur – and if you do it extremely well, you might even get your kiss right then and there. You can't speak, but body language is far more effective than words."_

And so Arthur had found himself asking the Frenchman to accompany him for a ride. Francis had agreed, and since then, neither of the proud men had uttered a word. The conversation Gilbert, Antonio and himself had had the previous night after the catastrophic engagement party played over and over in the Englishman's head, and he tried to brace himself for dangerously approaching moment of apology. Well, he did admit that he had perhaps overreacted a bit in the celebration – so had Francis – but still apologising wasn't something our proud Prince was used to doing.

"So, are we having a destination or are we just aimlessly riding?" Francis' cool tone dragged the Englishman from his thoughts back to the present moment.

Actually Arthur didn't have any particular destination in mind, but now that the Frenchman had asked, a certain place came to his mind. "This way," he said aloud, showing the way over a small field to a path that lead into the woods. Francis' lips twitched slightly as their horses followed the path and he let out a small, barely audible chuckle.

Arthur, eager to lighten the mood before having to say the hardest words there ever existed, instantly took the chance. "What are you laughing at?" he asked, giving the Frenchman a curious look.

Francis grinned at him. "I'm just hoping we won't meet any unicorns that might deceive us," he said teasingly, yet not meanly.

The comment made Arthur blush a little. "Your loss if you choose not to believe in them!"

"Whatever you say."

The conversation died at that, but Arthur was relieved nonetheless; at least the ice was now broken and the atmosphere wasn't quite so awkward anymore. Quite.

The Englishman lead them along the path for some time more, but then jumped off his horse. "We are getting off the path here," he answered Francis' unvoiced question and grabbing the reins of their respective horses, both men advanced into the forest.

The creek that Arthur wanted to show his fiancé wasn't far from the path, and it didn't take much time for them to reach it. The place was beautiful; there were less trees than around, but still not few enough to call the small place a clearing. The creek was floating through it leisurely, floating through the whole forest and joining with other small streams and finally reaching the sea. This place by this small creek was one of Arthur's favourite spots on earth. There he felt calm and peaceful, whatever worries he had on his mind. He always imagined that the flowing stream somehow managed to take all his problems with it and take them to the sea, where none of them mattered anymore.

Even now, despite his current situation, Arthur could feel tranquillity settling in within him. "We are here," he said softly.

Francis didn't respond for a while, silently gazing into the water. Then he hummed and smiled to himself. "It's beautiful."

"Yeah," the Englishman mumbled, mentally preparing himself. It was now or never, huh? "Listen, Francis," he stated insecurely, "I, uh, I'm sorry about the yesterday. I didn't mean to, to explode like that, I was just so nervous and all and... yeah. Sorry." And surprisingly, on uttering the words, Arthur realised that he really was. Nervously he glanced at the Frenchman, waiting for his response.

Francis was staring at him in disbelief, then shook his head and laughed, making the Englishman very red on his face. "Well this was unexpected; who'd believe that Prince Arthur himself would actually apologise?" He patted the Prince's shoulder and then smiled at him in a friendly way. "I'm sorry too," he admitted. "So let's forget our enmities and be friends, hm?"

Relieved that if nothing else, at least peace was achieved, Arthur returned the smile. "Let's." Now, if only he got one kiss on top of it, everything would be perfect – yet exactly that was the greatest challenge. _Use your body language,_ Antonio had advised, but now when it came to it, Arthur realised he had no idea of _how_.

He shifted slightly closer to the Frenchman (and tried to forget the humiliation he had experienced the last time he had tried it) and glanced at him again, trying to appear... what, kissable? _Goodness._.. "Do you," he started, already loathing himself for so despicably imposing himself upon the Frenchman, "Err, do you think words are quite enough of a guarantee for... this?"

Francis gave him a very, very funny look. "Excuse me?"

Arthur's palms started to sweat. "I mean, what I mean is that, err, we should seal this new agreement of ours somehow!" he quickly continued, spilling words out of his mouth without even thinking. "Yeah, that's what I meant, that we should seal this decision somehow! To... just to make it count!"

If one searched all over the world to find a bigger imbecile than what Arthur was currently being, they would bother for nothing, because such thing didn't exist – at least that was what Francis' expression was implying. He raised his eyebrows in most amused manner, yet a bit questionably, and...

xXx

"...and then he merely extended his hand for me to shake, looking like I was some kind of crazy idiot... Stop laughingyou wankers, this is your fault and- _Stop laughing_ I said!"

Antonio and Gilbert did stop laughing – eventually. When they finally deigned to concentrate again, Arthur was well on his way to fully losing his patience. Fortunately for the two friends, the Englishman was more eager to get rid of his curse than to get rid of _them_, and so he had to swallow his hurt pride and wait for another piece of advice.

"Okay... Okay," Gilbert finally said, trying to control the bubbles of laughter. "Right."

"Don't worry, Arthur," the Spaniard comforted – the effect being ruined by occasional snickers and eyes glinting with mirth. "This was just the beginning. Next time, he will kiss you."

"How?" Arthur's tone implied that he had no great faith in the Spaniard's words.

The two friends exchanged a thoughtful look, then Gilbert spoke. "Challenge. Francis takes pride in being the best lover ever (as _he_ claims), so if you question that somehow, it'll sure draw a reaction out of him."

From words to action. The very next suitable moment when Francis and Arthur happened to be alone again, the Englishman took a different approach to the matter than before.

They were walking in the garden of the castle when Arthur shot. "I was talking with Antonio the other day," he started indifferently, in conversational manner.

"Hmh?" was Francis' idle response.

"Well, so he told me that you consider yourself the best lover on earth."

Francis looked at him with mild interest, winking. "I assure you, I'm not the only one who considers that."

Arthur frowned at the smugness in the other's voice, but quickly obtained his unimpressed expression. "Is that so? Well pardon me for doubting that."

An elegant eyebrow rose on the Frenchman's face. "And why would you doubt that?"

Wonderful, he was becoming slightly irked. Maybe this crazy plan would work after all! "Well, as far as I've seen, you're merely an average-looking bastard with an obnoxious character."

"You said it yourself: as far as _you_ have seen. I don't waste my charms on the likes of you."

_Ouch_. Well, at least Arthur didn't have to _act_ doubting Francis' skills as a lover anymore; such a prude couldn't be anything else but lousy! "Oh really? And, pray tell me, what is it you have that makes you a good lover?"

Francis smirked triumphantly at him. "_Ooh_, wouldn't you like to know!"

"The hell I would! Because there _isn't_ anything! You just claim that you don't waste your 'charms' on me, but in reality, you _have_ _none_!" And with those words Arthur stomped away, angry and frustrated and vaguely puzzled at himself, leaving a baffled Frenchman standing alone in the garden.

"I_ 'have none_'? What nonsense!" Francis muttered to himself, glaring after the Englishman. "You'll see about that..."

xXx

"Hm, on the other hand, Francis _does_ feel such superiority to others in that field to the point that he doesn't even care to prove anything," Gilbert mused.

"Are you even _trying_ to help?" Arthur cried in desperation. So far their stupid plans had lead to nothing – save for Arthur's humiliation time after time.

"Fine, we have to use more firm weapons!"

"_Romance_," Antonio said gravely. "Francis gives value to things like atmosphere, flowers and romantic, self-cooked candlelight dinners."

"Yeah, he's such a sucker for romance! Sweep him off his feet with something utterly romantic! Cook him a dinner – that's a foolproof plan to find the way to Francis' heart."

Arthur, too desperate to object, decided to do as he was told. But there was one problem that Antonio and Gilbert hadn't taken in consideration – Arthur's cooking skills. Or better said, the lack of them. He couldn't cook, _at all_. Yet Antonio had emphasised the importance of the dinner being truly _self_-cooked, so Arthur just had to give it a try. After all, Gilbert had said the plan was foolproof – maybe that meant the edibility of the dinner didn't matter that much..?

Be that as it may, the wedding was approaching with alarming speed, having no more than two weeks and a day between itself and Arthur, so it wasn't like the Englishman had much choice. He was ready to try anything. Besides, how hard could it be, preparing one bloody dinner? If it didn't work out the first time, Arthur would try again (and again and again) until the food would turn out okay.

Unfortunately his optimism didn't last after the fourth burned roast and watered down potatoes and whatever else he had done his best to prepare. No matter what he tried or how he tried, his cooking always got a weird taste – at its best.

"Fuck this!" Arthur yelled and hurled the burned roast at the wall. At this rate the Frenchman would die of a food poisoning and even though it would undeniably solve the marriage problem, Arthur didn't want that. He just wanted to cook an edible dinner for Francis, was that too much asked for?

It was. By the time the evening fell, Arthur had managed to prepare several dishes... all of them awful, all except maybe the salad that contained nothing more than vegetables and a touch of Arthur's sauce (had there been any more of that sauce, the salad would have been fully ruined, too). To cover some of the displeasing tastes, the Englishman added more spices, and it seemed to work... Yes, it seemed to work. Tolerably enough.

To compensate for the food, Arthur paid extra attention to setting up a romantic atmosphere. He had earlier that day picked some flowers that he now arranged on the dining table and around his chamber. He placed a candle in the middle of the table (only one, to increase the romance and maybe to keep the table dim enough to hide the appearance of the dishes) and several others all around the chamber. At least the room looked decent enough... romantic enough.

Everything was ready – now he only had to fetch Francis. The thought made his cheeks grow warmer in anticipation. Even if it wasn't much, he had given his best shot and he wanted to see the Frenchman's reaction to it.

Exiting his room, Arthur almost sneaked to Francis' door and not allowing himself time to hesitate, banged the door with his fist. "Francis!"

First, there was no response despite several knocks (Arthur grew more and more anxious with each of them), but finally the door cracked open, just a bit, and one blue eye peeked from behind it. "What is it?" Francis asked, then seemed to identify the person standing behind his door. "Arthur?"

"Nothing much," the Englishman responded, extending his hand in an attempt to push the door further open, but the Frenchman had none of it; he even narrowed the already small gap between the door and the wall. Arthur frowned at that, but wasn't in the mood of prying – he had more pressing goals to achieve.

"I was just, you know, wondering if you wanted..." Arthur winced at his choice of words. "_Could_ come to my bedchamber-" Shit, that really sounded wrong... And Francis really wasn't making it any easier by raising his eyebrows amusedly. Arthur sighed; he really was no smooth talker. "I just... have a surprise. For you. If you want."

Francis didn't respond for a while, and the Englishman avoided his eyes nervously. Why couldn't he answer already? A simple question required nothing more but a simple answer! It was yes or no, so what was taking the damn Frenchman so long? Probably he was purposefully tormenting Arthur only to reject him with laughter... That would be nothing new, seeing the previous times Arthur had attempted to achieve something. But somehow, this time it would actually sting a bit if the Frenchman refused to come with him; Arthur had struggled so much to make everything at least endurable if perfection was out of his reach, and... And why was he sounding as if he was sincerely _wanting_ Francis to accompany him that night?

Quickly shaking his head to get rid of such thoughts, Arthur threw an impatient glance at the Frenchman. "Well?" he demanded, feeling blood flowing to his face as if the situation wasn't embarrassing enough already.

Francis watched him silently with one eye peeking from behind the door. "Actually..." he began, and Arthur's heart sunk. "I'm a bit busy at the moment..."

"Yeah, right," the poor Englishman responded, forcing the smile on his face. "Sorry to disturb you."

But before he could turn away, a hand snaked from behind the door and grasped his wrist. "_But_," Francis continued, smiling. "I have always time for surprises."

"Oh," Arthur said, because his heart seemed to remember how to work and Francis' hand was still holding his wrist. "Err, right."

"I'll be there in ten minutes, there's something I have to finish first," the Frenchman said and the door slammed shut, leaving a very baffled prince standing in front of it. "Ah... okay," the Prince muttered to the closed door. Unsure of whether to wait there in the hallway or in his own room, he fiddled with the hem of his shirt, staring at the door. But soon enough he started to feel stupid and made to return to his own chamber.

That was when he noticed Antonio. The Spaniard didn't say a word, only winked very suggestively and disappeared behind a corner. Blushing furiously, Arthur returned into his room's privacy and feeling more or less safe again, took a deep breath. Okay, good. So far his plan had been successful... Well, more like Antonio's plan, but it didn't really make a difference. Now, if only those disturbing... _thoughts_ would let him be, he might stand a chance that night!

A light knock on the door brought Arthur back to the present and his heart skipped a beat. Frowning at that and making the rather obvious conclusion that it was just the curse messing with him, he strode to the door and opened it.

It was Francis.

Well, of course it was, who else would it be? Arthur mentally punched himself for such stupid thoughts and gestured for the Frenchman to enter. "Come in."

Francis obeyed, but wrinkled his nose while doing so."Is it just me or is there an odd smell here?"

"It's just you," Arthur snorted flatly in response, his nervousness evaporating and his frame of mind instantly returning to normal. The frog had some nerve to stride into his chamber and immediately comment on the smell! The fact that he was actually right about it was trivial; it just wasn't good manners.

But Francis either ignored his response or hadn't even heard it; he was too busy examining the chamber with great curiosity, and Arthur vaguely realised that it was the first time when either of them visited the other's private rooms. The Frenchman turned to him, cocking one of his eyebrows in the already familiar manner – half amused, half questionable. "Either you like to have a certain atmosphere in your chambers, or then you've given some effort to create such a romantic feeling for tonight."

"Well." Arthur cleared his throat, self-consciousness building up within him again. "Like I said... I wanted to surprise you. You know, do something that, err, couples do. To appear as if I liked you. There," the Englishman gestured towards his set table. "I cooked a dinner."

Francis looked at him in wonder and then at the table. "Why yes, I can smell that," he muttered under his breath, but Arthur heard him anyway and granted the French idiot with a punch to his shoulder. "Stop complaining and sit down!"

Francis did just that and eyed the different dishes warily, as if they could any moment jump and eat him and not vice versa. (Fortunately there was only one candle on the table; it saved Francis from seeing too clearly just what was threatening him.) "So... What did you make?"

"Well, here we have some soup for starters..."

"What kind of soup?"

Arthur blinked. "What do mean, what kind of soup? Normal soup."

"Arthur... The word 'soup' is just an appellative for numerous different dishes that fit under that term."

"Well, this is _my_ soup," the Prince announced proudly, trying not to lose his dignity. "It has potatoes, onions, carrots and some other vegetables in it. And water, obviously. Healthy and tasty, to put it simply."

Francis gave him a long look but helped himself some soup and lifter the spoon to his lips. "Let's give it a try, then," he said hesitantly. Arthur watched him fixedly, eagerly waiting for his response. He had tasted the soup himself, and it hadn't actually turned out all that bad... at least if you were open for new experiences.

Apparently, however, Francis' opinion differed from his. "If this is how you show your affection, I wouldn't want to know what your hatred is like!" the Frenchman managed to gasp between violent coughs and laughter mixed together. "Just how many bucketfuls did you put salt? And are you sure it's water you used and not vinegar?"

"I had to add something to give taste!" Arthur responded defensively, frowning a bit. He had thought that Francis liked vinegar, being French and all.

"Uh," was all the Frenchman said to that. He pushed his plate with the soup a bit further from himself and downed a glass of wine that Arthur had put on display. "Dare I ask, what's next?"

"Roasted beef," Arthur said, preparing himself for another wave of mockery. The roast was a bit burned, he couldn't deny it, and he had soaked it in vinegar, too... How could he have possibly known that vinegar wasn't to Francis' taste? Though in the roast he had added some spices which probably covered the taste of vinegar.

Francis cut himself a piece of meat and stared at it for quite a while. "If the smell is anything to judge by, you wanted to add some taste here, too," he muttered, and Arthur shifted on his seat.

The roast didn't get any better acceptance than the soup had earlier, and Francis had to visibly struggle to manage to swallow one small bite of the beef. Tears were flowing from his eyes and he hurriedly grabbed his glass and washed away the remains of food with wine. Then, to be sure, he poured himself some water and downed it, too. Pressing his palm on his lips as if to force the food to stay down in his stomach, he moved his eyes upon the Englishman, who right then and there realised that his plan was doomed... had been from the very beginning.

"Salad?" Arthur offered weakly, but Francis merely shook his head. Arthur placed the bowl with salad back on the table and desperately tried to find something to say, but nothing came to his mind. The Frenchman said nothing, either, just kept looking at Arthur with his palm still pressed against his mouth.

Finally Arthur felt he could no longer take the pressure. "Fine, it's horrible, I know!" he suddenly snapped and rose from his seat. "It's not as if I tried to poison you or anything! I did my _best_, okay?"

Francis didn't even flinch despite the heatedly blurted words. For few more seconds he remained silent, but then removed his hand from his mouth and burst into a mirthful laughter. "Oh, Arthur," he laughed and stood up to approach the Englishman, who stared at him in shock. "You are such a horrible cook!"

"No need to rub it in my face, git!" So what, maybe he was, but at least he had _tried_!

Francis, snaking his hand around Arthur's shoulders and still chuckling, wiped away his tears of laughter. "But," he continued despite Arthur's angry, half-hearted effort to shrug the arm away, "I really appreciate the effort. Thank you."

The warm feeling that spread all around Arthur's body on hearing those words was surely illegal in every kingdom, and feeling stupid for getting so pleased for the compliment, the Englishman punched the other man softly in the arm. "You are just too picky a French bastard," he said, but couldn't help smiling as the said bastard laughed.

"Quite possible," Francis said slowly with a twinkle in his blue eyes, "But fortunately for us both you weren't the only one with this kind of a surprise tonight."

"Huh?"

"Follow me," the Frenchman leant to whisper into Arthur's ear and wrapped his fingers around his wrist, coaxing the Englishman to follow.

"Where are we going?" Arthur asked, undesired shivers running down his spine as Francis leant so close to him.

"To my chambers. Hush, no more questions," Francis ordered winking at Arthur, who, despite himself, couldn't help feeling sweet anticipation fluttering in his stomach. "You shall find out soon enough."

X


	8. The Side Effect

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter Seven:**_

_**The Side Effect**_

Arthur stared blankly.

The scene was like torn from a stupid comedy – the kind of a comedy where the main character tries and tries and fails at something simple, while within two steps from him somebody else completes the very same task without any struggle as the audience laughs. Arthur gritted his teeth; Francis must be so proud of himself, succeeding in making Arthur a perfect fool. Or maybe he thought he was being insanely funny, preparing a surprise like that just to emphasise Arthur's failure. Or wait, probably it was both. Which meant he was a double-idiot.

Francis' surprise, you see, wasn't very different from Arthur's. In fact, the only difference between the surprises was that Arthur had screwed up his, while Francis obviously hadn't – if the delicious scent of various dishes was anything to judge by.

That's right, Francis had cooked a dinner as well. Oh, the irony.

Slowly Arthur turned to glare at the Frenchman, who was standing innocently right behind him with a disgustingly pleased smile plastered on his face, beaming with all his charm. "Well?" Francis asked expectantly, all too visibly _all_ too happy with himself.

Arthur's response did not equal the Frenchman's in enthusiasm. "_Now_ I hate you," he groaned, staring at Francis accusingly. "You just _had_ to float here and save the night with your perf- edible cooking, thinking it would make me happy seeing how pathetic my own attempt was... Or is this your twisted way of getting back at me for something? Or is this just your idea of a good joke? You planned this, didn't you? Wait, of course! Those two bastards must have had this planned all along to ridicule me... Traitors, and to think I believed they'd help me! Just wait, you three, I'll most certainly-"

Francis had followed his fiancé's train of thought with a mixture or bewilderment, amusement and slight annoyance, and decided it was a most perfect timing to cut it down. "Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. What on earth are you blabbering about?" he laughed, giving the Englishman an encouraging push forward. "Shut your mouth and take a seat!"

Arthur was rather tempted to do just so, for his still empty stomach was very attracted to the dishes put on display on the table, but he felt he couldn't give in that easily. "This is too suspicious," he growled, keeping staring at Francis with furrowed brows. "Why would you set up a surprise like this? To poison me?"

Francis sighed in exasperation. "Why had you set up _your_ surprise?" he countered. "And if somebody was in danger of being poisoned, I think that would be me."

And now Francis was already aiming at his weaknesses! Appalled, Arthur glared at him, desperate to come up with a witty retort, failing. "If... If I had truly intended to poison you, you would be long dead," he finally muttered, crossing his arms defensively over his chest. It was unfair; Francis knew already one of his weak points – the serious lack of cooking skills – yet Arthur knew none of his. Well, aside of him being French, maybe, but that wasn't enough.

"Alright, I'm sorry," Francis said with another sight. "No one is perfect at everything, and as I told you, I really appreciate your effort. But how about we sit down finally and talk about it over the dinner if it bothers you so much. I assure you I have no hidden motives behind this act."

Arthur huffed but did oblige at last. "I still don't believe you," he said as Francis pulled the chair out for him. Scowling at the Frenchman's antic he sat down. "I'll have you know that should you poison me, your life won't be worth half a penny."

The Frenchman threw his arms in the air. "Oh for heaven's sake Arthur! I'm not trying to poison you! If something, perhaps I just wanted to prove you wrong, is all."

"Ha! I knew there was something more to it!" Arthur exclaimed triumphantly. "Wait... Prove me wrong? About what?"

"Such an insult, and he doesn't even remember it," Francis said to his right, as if speaking to somebody else. "About what you said in the garden the other day, of course!"

Arthur blinked, confused. "Um..?"

"You said that I don't have any charms, so I decided to show you otherwise," was Francis' sheepish answer.

_Oh_. Right, now Arthur remembered. He nearly uttered a laughter but caught himself in time. What, had Francis really taken that so seriously? The Frenchman obviously knew that if he wasn't charming, then no one was, so there really was no reason why he would feel the need to prove anything to Arthur. So what was he playing at?

"And here I recall you saying that you wouldn't waste your charms on someone like me," the Englishman uttered just the tiniest bit edgily, but Francis shrugged it off. "While that is true, it kept bothering me," he admitted almost guiltily, and for some reason Arthur felt not only offended but slightly hurt, too.

"You are such an idiot," he commented flatly, rolling his eyes.

Francis chuckled. "Oh, don't take it seriously, I didn't mean it," he said airily. _Mean what_, Arthur wanted to ask, but it would be stupid so he didn't, and Francis continued speaking anyway. "Perhaps we should eat before the food gets cold, _non_?"

"Hmph."

"Quit the sulking, Arthur. You are much more attractive when you're not frowning all the time."

"What." Tone browned off, Arthur gave Francis an unimpressed stare. "I find lip service quite distasteful and pretentious, you know."

"Of course lip service is pretentious, that's the point of it," Francis said, now rolling his eyes in turn. "But I actually meant what I said. You have possibly the most vivid eyes I've ever seen, but when you frown, the attention is automatically drawn on your eyebrows instead of your eyes, and that is a shame. Seriously, don't hide what's good in you."

It was ridiculous how Arthur suddenly felt much less offended and hurt. Not that Francis was to be trusted, for flattery flowed easily from his lips, yet nonetheless the Frenchman's words had made a crack on Arthur's everlasting shell. Really, he shouldn't have that tingling sensation in his stomach just because Francis had seen past his hideous eyebrows... What the hell was wrong with him? _Come on, Arthur, you can't let that slimy frog disturb you! Now, a typically striking comment will __save the situation._

But Arthur should have known that Francis would ruin everything, always. Before the Englishman could open his mouth for a yet upcoming clever retort, the Frenchman burst into laughter, effectively making whatever was on Arthur's mind evaporate. A flustered "_what now_" was all that the Prince could muster.

"Oh, it's nothing!" Francis gasped for breath, his words all but convincing. "Just your face..."

Arthur abruptly rose from his seat, the warmth in his body quickly resolving; there was a limit to how much offence he was going to tolerate... and that limit was not very high, particularly not after such a disastrous evening. Fuck it all, he was leaving! He should have known that not even one dinner alone with Francis was a good idea.

"Aww, there's that frown again," Francis said playfully, but then apparently finally realised how unamused the Prince was.

"I give up," Arthur muttered to himself, turning around. Maybe he should just start accepting the thought of Francis truly becoming his spouse. How ironical; the two of them could not stand one another and for that were destined to spend the rest of their lives together.

"Wait, you misunderstood!" Francis called behind him and rushed to stop him. He jumped in front of Arthur to block his way, and to make sure to keep him from leaving, grabbed his shoulders. The only response the Englishman offered was an unimpressed stare of the forest-green eyes.

"You misunderstood what I meant," Francis repeated. "I didn't mean there's something wrong with your face... It's just, really, you should have seen yourself. First all frowning, then looking completely baffled and blushing, then suddenly angrily frowning again... Your face is so vibrant."

Arthur hadn't even realised the changes of his expressions until Francis pointed them out, and it was greatly frustrating how the Frenchman had managed to make his words sound as if they were a compliment. Flushing, Arthur looked at the slender chest before him. It was embarrassing, pathetic and most importantly, bloody _annoying_ how the stupid Frenchman's words affected him so much.

"And again," Francis said softly, still holding his shoulders. Arthur took a glance at his face, his ocean-blue eyes, getting an uncomfortable feeling that the Frenchman could read his face like an open book. "Stop it," he uttered.

"What?" Francis asked, chuckling.

_Making me feel like I actually wanted to stay here like this._ The thought passed quickly through Arthur's mind, but it's enormity lied in its speediness. Fleeting ideas were the most dangerous ones; although they came and went quickly, they always left a tiny seed in one's mind. _What-? _Arthur blinked, horrified, but fortunately caught himself in time. "Acting like a typical flattering nobleman," he retorted.

The Frenchman's eyes sparkled. "What if I _am_ a nobleman?" he asked, sliding one hand off Arthur's shoulder and guiding him back to the table with another. "And flattery is not flattery when what one says is true. More importantly, let us finish this meal at last. I have something special for dessert."

But his previous words had reminded the Prince of what his father had pointed out in the engagement celebration – he knew nothing about Francis' background.

"Oh?" he said, sitting down obediently. "Well, are you? A nobleman that is."

Francis winked as he took his own place again. "Does it matter? Will King Lionheart take back his order if I'm not?"

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "That was a rhetorical question, wasn't it?"

Both men uttered a miserable laughter of mutual understanding.

"Fine," Francis then said. "If you want to learn the truth, back home in France..." He paused, making Arthur involuntarily lean forward a bit. "I was a mere swineherd."

Arthur laughed again. "Yeah right," he said. "But seriously, who were you?"

Francis stared at him with an unreadable expression. "Are you sure you can take the truth, Arthur?"

"Cut the nonsense and spit it out."

"Very well. I was a swineherd."

"You were..." Arthur's voice faded away. "So you actually _meant_ that?"

Francis rolled his eyes. "I thought I already made it clear that I actually speak the truth sometimes."

"No way," the Prince mumbled, more to himself than to his fiancé. "Are you trying to trick me? There's no way you could have been a swineherd, you're too-" He paused to find words, helplessly motioning with his hands.

A smirk spread on the Frenchman's lips. "I am what? Too handsome? Elegant? Suave?"

"Too French," Arthur muttered through his gritted teeth, strictly keeping to himself the fact that what Francis had suggested had been the first words to come up in his own mind, too. "Too well aware of the etiquette, idiot."

"Arthur, although the English don't seem to learn manners even if they're princes, you said it yourself: I'm _French_, and the French are not brutal barbarians, were they on top of the social scale or on the bottom of it."

A long silence followed Francis' words; Arthur was too busy realising that his fiancé had been a swineherd to notice his insult, and just stared blankly at the Frenchman while Francis watched him with an unreadable expression.

"A swineherd," the Prince finally muttered to himself. Then he suddenly burst into laughter. "A swineherd! I'm to marry a _swineherd_! Oh, glory... father will be elated! I can't wait to rub it in his face!"

Francis stared at him in awe for a moment. "And here I thought you'd freak out," he said tentatively, not really knowing how to respond to the Englishman's reaction. Maybe this particular piece of information had been too much for him and he had lost his mind.

Arthur wiped his tears. "I don't give a fuck, a Frenchman is a Frenchman no matter how you look at him," he said, choking on his laughter and thus missing the look Francis gave him. "But father – _he_ might have an opinion about it! Do imagine his face when in the wedding he has to give me away to a frog-swineherd! That's the best lesson father could ever get for setting me up in the whole marriage thing in the first place!"

Francis crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his eyebrows in the familiar elegant manner. "Truly hilarious," he commented with a hint of amused sarcasm, "Yet here I thought there would be no wedding."

With a true prince's reflexes, Arthur quickly realised his poorly chosen words and caught himself just in time to save his dignity. "Well, _he_ doesn't know that."

The Frenchman gave him a small smile. "Poor man... To think that his own son would deceive him in such way."

"It's for the best of all of us. He wants you to become his son-in-law just as much as you wish him to become your father-in-law."

Francis laughed airily and the Englishman felt safe again. Now that the disaster had been artfully avoided, Arthur actually had time to understand what exactly had slipped from his mouth; he had spoken of the wedding as if it were truly happening, without so much as a trace of dreading in his voice! That evening everything was so wickedly odd, he should watch himself or soon he would be _wanting_ to be kissed instead of _needing_ it! And why such a thought would even cross his mind? There was no way Arthur was in danger of falling for the fancy frog's stupid charms!

To completely divert the Frenchman's attention from his slip (and maybe his own attention, too), Arthur quickly came up with a question. "So," he started in a carefully practised conversational manner, "why did you leave France to begin with, if you are all so bloody sophisticated there?"

"I recall I told you that already, when we first met," Francis pointed out, but continued nonetheless in somewhat meekly a tone. "To find my happiness."

Arthur took a casual sip from his wine glass. "Have you then? Found your happiness?" he asked, trying to hide his interest under an indifferent tone. For him the thought of leaving home to find happiness was something fascinating and romantic even, something about which he had only read in fairytales.

Once again the Frenchman's eyes twinkled. "Who knows?" he asked lightly. "Maybe somewhere along the road I have."

The smile he gave Arthur with those words gave the Englishman chills, forcing him to look away. _Something isn't right_, he thought, the feeling making him shudder. Something. Just wasn't. _Right_. If only he could put a finger on what exactly it was... "Too bad you are trapped here, then," he muttered.

Francis shrugged lightly, not commenting Arthur's words, and asked instead, "Did you enjoy the food?"

Arthur looked down at his empty plate; he hadn't even realised that he had eaten everything to the last crumble while chatting with the Frenchman. A pleasant aftertaste lingered on his tongue, but other than that, no trace was left of his dinner. "Hm," Arthur said with belittling, finding himself regretting paying so little attention to his meal. "Quite. I guess." Then he remembered something. "I recall you mentioning the dessert..?"

"You recall quite right," Francis winked and hopped from his seat. "Just a moment, Arthur!" He left the room and soon returned with a silver tray in his hands. The tray was covered with a cope, making it impossible to know what lay beneath it. Francis held the tray at Arthur's shoulder-level and lifted the cope. "Let me introduce you _Crème __brûlée_, a most delightful French dessert," he announced proudly, revealing the treat and placing one of the two dessert plates on the table before Arthur. "Do enjoy,_ mon cher_."

Arthur ignored the French (who cared for the language while having something doubtlessly delicious served to you?), not being able to resist sniffing the delicacy; soft scent of vanilla filled his nostrils.

Francis still stood by his side. "Taste it," he keenly encouraged, leaning closer and picking up the spoon from the table. Arthur assumed he would hand the spoon to him, but no; the Frenchman took a spoonful of the dessert and lifted it to the Englishman's lips. "Here~"

Flushing dark scarlet, Arthur shoved the hand away. "I can perfectly well eat myself, thank you very much," he grumbled. Apparently Francis couldn't go one minute without making him embarrassed.

Francis grinned. "Come on, Arthur... For me?"

"No! I do not wish to be fed like an infant, you frog!"

Francis' grin turned into a pleading expression involving innocent blue eyes and a hurt pout. "No? Not even one spoonful, for me?" Receiving determined shaking of head for an answer, the Frenchman pulled an ace from his sleeve. "I was dragged here from my happy journey to become your fiancé, in a totally foreign country, in a totally foreign castle, with totally foreign people, my whole future being taken out of my own hands, and you have the heart to decline me the only thing I have left, my simple little pleasures?"

Cursed be every bloody frog living on the goddamn earth for Francis' eyes. Murderously glaring at the Frenchman, Arthur forced himself to part his lips, just a little at first, then a bit wider as the spoon hovered closer. Francis, ever the wicked man, smirked victoriously and slid the spoon into Arthur's mouth before the Englishman would have time to change his mind. Pulling the now empty spoon out, Francis watched as Arthur took in the taste of the treat. "Well?" he asked eagerly.

Had Arthur's sense of taste been less assaulted by the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted, he would have smacked the Frenchman for looking so smug and all too pleased with himself. But since the dessert had momentarily softened him, he just settled with answering the question. "Good... considering it's French."

Francis rolled his eyes but smiled contentedly nonetheless; he had learnt to understand Arthur well enough to know that he wouldn't be able to draw bigger compliments out of him... yet. "_Bon_," he said and settled down to enjoy his own dessert beside Arthur instead of returning to his previous place on the opposite end of the table. This didn't go unnoticed by the Englishman, but he figured it would be the best to ignore the frog and pay the dessert all the attention it deserved. Francis, however, proved to be very hard a thing to ignore.

"Tell me Arthur, what do you occupy yourself with during your days?" he asked airily. Arthur glanced at him, slightly taken aback by the question. "Why?"

"Hmm, probably because I'm curious to learn more about you?"

"No need for sarcasm," Arthur, not really one to talk, snorted and then shrugged. "Study. Practise sword-fighting and stuff. Sometimes attend counsels concerning kingdom's affairs or accept citizens to hear them out."

"I see. How about your spare time?"

"Well, I might go riding, or read, or both. Or..." Arthur paused. There wasn't actually that much he did with his free time, now that he paused to think about it. Besides, there was merely a fine line between his 'free' and 'not free' time, and he said that to Francis. "But, well, I guess I could do whatever I feel like doing."

"Hm." Francis didn't sound quite satisfied for some reason. "What about friends?"

Arthur put his spoon on the plate and turned to stare at the Frenchman. "What sort of interrogation is this, if I may ask?"

Francis met his stare calmly. "Am I not allowed to ask?"

His tone, lacking the playfulness that had been there for the whole evening, bewildered the Englishman, making him actually answer truthfully. "Friends... Well, there are the faeries – they sometimes make themselves visible for me. And, hm, well, I suppose Veneziano is everybody's friend, somehow. And maybe I could call Romano my friend of some kind, too, since he is always so straightforward and rude with me."

"What an odd quality to appreciate in friends," Francis chuckled, wisely restraining himself from commenting the faery part.

"If your friends are anything to judge by, you are not one to talk."

"_Touché_," the Frenchman grinned. "And..?"

"Well, that was kinda it."

"That was it?" Francis looked at his fiancé in disbelief.

"You heard me. And stop looking like that, as a prince I have to deal with so many people during the day that exchanging a couple of profanities with Romano every now and then is perfectly enough for me." It was true. Arthur really was a bit of a loner, enjoying himself the best with the company of animals or faeries or a good book in nature. He had never required anything more. (And even if sometimes he had, he just had to immerse in a book and forget the rest, which wasn't even Francis' business at all so there was no need to tell him that.)

"What about your brothers then?"

The whole idea made the Englishman laugh out loud, though there might have been a tiny bit of bitterness in his laughter. "My brothers? My brothers will most likely declare me a war the very moment I become the King."

But Francis didn't join his laughter. He gazed at Arthur with his deep blue eyes so intensely that laughter died on the Englishman's lips and small shudders ran up his spine. It was disturbing enough when Francis looked at him like he normally did, mischievous and whatnot, but this, practically feeling his eyes on his skin, it was too much.

"Arthur," Francis said seriously. "Are you happy?"

The question startled the poor Prince completely. Why would the Frenchman, or anyone on the whole, ask such thing? Besides, wasn't the answer obvious? How could Arthur _not_ be happy when he was a prince of his beloved kingdom, was able to communicate with magical creatures, had a total ass of a father and owned a huge library with so many books that reading them all would take no less than a lifetime?

"Of course I'm happy," he retorted somewhat defensively, "I'm content with my life and there is nothing more I desire!"

But looking into those sapphire orbs forced Arthur's traitorous mind to silently complete what had been left unvoiced._ At least that's how it was until I met you_, it whispered somewhere in the back of his head, and the Englishman didn't find it in himself to make the thought disappear. Instead, for once, he carefully accepted the truth; ever since he had met Francis (and his obnoxious friends), a longing for something else had started growing within him, slowly but surely. A craving to breath the air of the whole kingdom, maybe even of the whole world, instead of only London. And not with guards and courtiers accompanying him, but with actual friends. And maybe, maybe even...

Arthur shook his head; truthful or not, there were only so many things he could accept in one day.

"So yeah," he uttered with finite tone despite the restlessness in his chest. Now he didn't have a book to immerse himself into to get rid of the feeling, so he had to rely on Francis to distract him – which was a paradox since Francis was the very root of his restlessness to begin with.

"What about your friends?" he asked.

"Why, I believe you already know them."

"So no one else aside Gilbert and Antonio?"

Francis almost snorted. "What makes you even think that? I'm not socially challenged like you. Only in this castle I have befriended Veneziano, Charlotte, James and Sebastian, Violet, Jane, Martha, Jeeves..."

Arthur's jaw almost dropped. "Have you befriended every bloody servant in this castle?"

"Good people, they are," Francis said and, with a wink, added, "For Englishmen."

"Impressive," Arthur muttered, feeling being a bit betrayed by the servants.

"I've always made friends easily," Francis explained. "Very convenient if you are a swineherd and want to have a look at the higher levels of the social ladder. But Antonio and Gilbert are those who know me inside out and vice versa. They are _the_ friends."

"Right."

The Frenchman chuckled. "It's funny how I met them." He glanced sideways at Arthur. "Care for an aftertaste story?"

Actually curious, the Englishman nodded, scooping some more dessert in his mouth.

"Excellent. So, once upon a time...

_...there was a huge manor in French countryside. The owner of it was the richest man in the local area but also, as the rich tend to be, definitely the meanest. So it happened that once a terrible pestilence swiped over our village, cutting down people – including my own parents – as if they were nothing more but weak weeds. The manor lost nearly a fourth of its workforce, mainly those of the lower cast. I, being a young man in the age of sixteen, decided that I had to take a hold of my life and find a way to make myself a living – thus I applied and was accepted for the freshly opened place of a swineherd in the manor._

_I had not really any reasons to complain; I had my own little shack to live in and a job, and I was mostly contented with my life, however humble it may have been. But slowly, that was to change._

_Now, I was – and am – a person who loves company and experiencing things. On top of that, I possessed a curious character and a will to learn more than what to feed to pigs. Those qualities in a sixteen-year-old boy may lead to unexpected consequences, as I was to realise in time._

_My curiosity along with my growing interest in beauty and fancy things such as balls and fancy people that my rank would never allow me to see, I actually started observing more closely the people of the manor, whenever I got a glimpse of them. And, encouraged by the recklessness of a young man, every time there was a ball arranged, I would find a way either to sneak in or then observe it through whatever crack I could find. Naturally I had to keep myself hidden, for I knew I would be mercilessly punished were I noticed, but even from afar I learnt quite a deal about the etiquette and good manners and style, just by careful observing._"

"Are you actually going to get to the point this evening?" Arthur asked, rolling his eyes at Francis' complacent face. The Frenchman shushed at him and Arthur obeyed; even if he never admitted it to Francis, he actually was quite fascinated by the words flowing from the Frenchman's mouth. And now at least he had a reasonable explanation to Francis' mysteriously flawless social behaviour.

"_Well, I was lucky enough to be able to continue my little adventures for quite a while, but Lady Luck does sometimes momentarily take her eyes off her favourites, too. One night, when there was an exceptionally grand ball arranged, I, as usually, took my secret observation place. But meanwhile someone had sneaked into the pig-pens and stolen three pigs. Even now I do have some respect for them; the pigs were huge and fat and sometimes hard to control. But the point is that __had I been __where I should have – in my shack near the stalls – I would have noticed any attempts of burglary. So, when I realised the next day what had happened, I was desperate. I was the one who was responsible for pigs, so I was the one who would be punished if anything happened to them. Doubly so, if my previous night's location was found out._

_I had two days before someone would come and see that everything was in order, but I had no clues where to start looking for the blasted animals. So, in the evening I went to the village and placed myself in a pub, intending to drown my sorrows in wine and then maybe escape far away (and become a wanted man accused of robbery)._

_While I was sitting there on a stool and starting my second glass, I heard how the doors of the pub were thrown open and someone loudly announced at the door, 'Hey bartender, I have decided to grace this place with my awesome presence so give here the best beer you have!' The bartender, though visibly annoyed, obeyed, and this obnoxiously yelling man took a seat beside me, gulping down his beer. On finishing the first pint he demanded another, and while the bartender, a good man he was, poured it to him, the loud man turned to me._

_'Hey there,' he said, grinning widely. I looked at him and marked his silvery white hair and crimson eyes – what a weird-looking man! 'Why so miserable?' he asked me._

_I wasn't particularly keen on shedding my worries to complete strangers, but, as I said, I was desperate by then and moreover, I had finished my second glass as well. So I told him my situation._

_'That sucks, man,' the silver-haired man laughed. 'I'm Gilbert, by the way, and I'm in a good mood today, so I'll help you out.'_

_Perhaps it wasn't too wise to trust random half-drunk people, particularly when you were half-drunk yourself, but I figured I had nothing to lose. So we both rose to leave for a better place to make plans (which would be my shack). In the process, Gilbert (or maybe it was I, I don't remember, but it doesn't matter since Gilbert thought it was him) stumbled and bumped into a person, who turned out to be a tanned, muscular and totally drunk Spaniard._

_'Ha ha, sorry bro,' Gilbert laughed before neither I nor the Spaniard had even realised something had happened._

_Unfortunately, the drunken Spaniard fell on the ground, a basket of tomatoes he had with him collapsing under his weight, destroying the red fruits inside. Who would have thought that someone could get so mad over a few smashed fruits? I certainly didn't. And so didn't Gilbert, but we both reviewed our opinions when the Spaniard, in spite of his drunken state, grabbed Gilbert from the collar and dragged him outside. 'I'll make you pay for those!' he growled._

_'They are just tomatoes!' Gilbert yelled back._

_'No, they were my living, because I'm a tomato-seller and those were supposed to turn into money which was supposed to turn into my dinner!'_

_'Oh, if that's the case,' Gilbert shrugged, reached into his pocked and tossed the Spaniard a couple of copper coins. The Spaniard immediately put him down, took the coins and smiled broadly. 'Great, it's settled. I'm Antonio, nice to meet you both!' There was such a drastic change in his character that Gilbert and I were dumbfounded for a while, but recovered quickly. Antonio turned out to be an extremely pleasant and friendly young man, and before I realised we had enlightened him about my hopeless situation. Maybe it was due to alcohol, but the Spaniard immediately offered his help, which I gladly accepted. And so the three of us ended up in my shack, though instead of doing something about my problem we slept till late morning._

_The following morning proved Antonio to be just as nice sober as he was when drunk, and the three of us went to search for clues. There, Gilbert surprised us all. Despite his loud and sometimes obnoxious character, he was incredibly sharp and clever, and soon we were following tracks invisible for anyone but the Prussian. I admit I had my doubts, but they all evaporated as soon as we found a cave – where from we could hear grunting. We had found the missing pigs._

_But our joy didn't last for long. Along with the pigs, we found five mean, strong-looking bandits. They were eating some meat – other that my pigs' meat, I relievedly noticed – and didn't see or hear us – until one of the pigs treacherously started grunting even more wildly, waking the bandits' suspicions. So, we were in a situation where we had to think fast; we would not be able to escape without a fight. Three of us against the five of them – the bandits had better chances. But we had Antonio._

_Before we could agree on any kind of plan, the Spaniard jumped out of our hiding place and rushed towards the bandits, swaying a smallish axe he had pulled out of nowhere. 'Return the pigs,' he __shouted. 'No,' was the answer, and the bandits stepped forward to confront the Spaniard.'If that's the case...' Antonio growled, and, as one of the bandits lunged forward, swung his axe. It hit the man in the head, not with the sharp end though, and the man collapsed on the ground, unconscious. That was when Gilbert and I recovered from shock, exchanged a look and rushed to support our friend._

_The fight was brief. Antonio was equal of three men in a fight, and soon we took down all the bandits, not killing them but just tying them to prevent any further problems. Deciding to return for the bandits later, we took the pigs and returned them to their rightful owner – who, though, was never to know about the whole adventure._

_That night the three of us went to the pub, shared our life stories and drank ourselves in oblivion, and the next morning I went to the manor and announced of my resignation. Maybe it was irresponsible, abandoning my previous safe yet dull life like that for adventures, but it was what my heart of an almost eighteen-year-old young man told me to do. Ever since that day, the three of us were inseparable, and the world was open for each and one of us._

Only later did we realise that we had forgotten the bandits tied up in the cave," Francis finished his story, chuckling lightly. "Who knows what happened to them in the end..."

It took Arthur a moment to shake himself out of the zone he always got into when reading or listening to a story. Francis really had a talent as a story-teller... Not only his words, but also his voice and body and eyes were living the story, giving it life. Even if Arthur hadn't have a weakness for stories, he would have been stunned by the Frenchman's narrative.

"Oh," he made a weak sound, only to break free from his trance and images of the young Frenchman and his friends.

"Mmm," Francis hummed, apparently somewhat lost in his memories. Arthur, still absorbed in what he had just heard, just couldn't help asking, "What about Antonio and Gilbert? What were a Spaniard and a Prussian doing in a French village?"

"That you will have to ask them yourself. Perhaps one day they'll tell you."

_But there aren't so many days left anymore before you are supposed to leave._

Francis' eyes trained on him and and the Frenchman gave a soft smile. "I see you enjoy stories pretty much, hmm?" He noticed the empty plate in Arthur's hands. "And apparently my dessert as well," he added, pleased. Then his eyes slid from the plate to Arthur's face and a tiny frown appeared on his face.

"What?" Arthur asked, automatically defensive.

"Nothing," the Frenchman mumbled absently, leaning closer to the Englishman. "You just have a bit of _Crème brûlée_ on the corner of your mouth."

"I-is that so?" Arthur tried very hard not to be affected by the Frenchman's increasing proximity, but his attempt was in vain; the butterflies in his stomach and his fluttering heart were almost as hard to ignore as Francis' intense eyes on his lips or his warm fingers under the Englishman's chin. And his face coming closer. And closer. _Oh dear God_, Arthur thought but whether in fear or sweet anticipation, he didn't know.

(That was a lie. He did know.)

His eyes fell closed on their own accord and then he felt a light, warm sigh on his skin.

And then something soft briefly touched his lips. "There, all gone," he heard Francis say and opened his eyes... to see the Frenchman awkwardly withdraw with a napkin.

"Ah." It took Arthur several seconds to recover. _Yeah, all gone. The mood that is,_ he thought bitterly before catching himself – but this time he was too late. With his heart sinking in disappointment there was no more denying. No more pretending. With this single event Arthur had got the answer to why he had been feeling all so funny that night. Cold shudders ran up and down the Englishman's spine as the horrifying realisation sank in.

The curse had a _side effect_.

xXx

"Hey, bastard."

It was the tone that made Gilbert halt on the spot and turn on his heels to look at the older one of the two Italian brothers. Romano was standing on the upper half of the staircase, eyes darting between this and that but never touching the Prussian. _Shit_, Gilbert thought,_ why is he up at this hour?_

The same question could have been asked from the Prussian himself, too. It was one hour past midnight, and Gilbert was going to meet Antonio in the stalls to hear the hottest news about Arthur's little stunt that evening. He had thought that Romano was long sleeping, oblivious to the world and to the Prussian's mysterious little disappearings. Now he would have to come up with an excuse to flee the scene or cancel his appointment with Antonio, and both of the possibilities were troublesome.

Romano's tone, however, bothered the Prussian a bit; it was not aggressive or accusing, but... somehow hesitant, even. And if the Italian was not verbally abusing him in the dead of night it was either because they had had awesome sex together or then something was seriously wrong. Since Gilbert and Romano had (unfortunately) not had sex together (yet), the only chance was that something was seriously wrong.

"Yeah, what is it?" he asked cautiously.

"Nothing. I just. Why the hell aren't you sleeping at this ungodly hour? I've seen you several times already sneaking out to meet someone, and then you are all so fucking sleepy and distractable during the following day, which is not good because I'll kill you if you harm the horses because of your stupid nightly love adventures, which, by the way, I do not care about in the slightest, but if it affects your work then-"

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold your horses!" Gilbert held up his hands in defence, baffled by the sudden verbal attack and the information it contained. "Wait, did you say that you've seen me sneaking out?" Oh fuck, that would be no good. He couldn't reveal The Secret Plan to anyone, not even to Romano, and coming up with a believable reason to why he was abandoning his sacred sleep for little 'walks' would be hard.

"Not that I'm aware of your brainless routines or anything, but if you want to sneak out to have a shag then at least have the decency to do so without waking me up!"

"I'm not sneaking out to have a shag!" Gilbert blurted out and instantly regretted it. That was practically the only believable reason for sneaking out, but for some reason, he just didn't want for Romano to think that he was seeing someone like that.

"It's none of my concern what you do with your nights, I just want to..." The Italian stumbled upon his own words, making the Prussian smirk.

"You just want to know, huh?" he completed the now flustered Italian's sentence. Then he got serious again. If Romano had seen him out _with_ somebody, did it mean he had also seen _whom_ exactly the Prussian was meeting? If the Italian had recognised Arthur, they would have to either trust that Romano wouldn't tell anyone or then capture and gag him until the whole Francis-Arthur-curse triangle was solved.

"Listen, fellow," he said, approaching the Italian a bit. "How much exactly do you know?"

Romano's face immediately turned even more reserved and his whole body language signalled him to be on the verge of turning around and running for his life. "What... exactly do you mean?"

So much for not arising suspicions, Gilbert thought and sighed. "Look, I just have a little secret and I really can't reveal it to you." As Romano narrowed his eyes warily, the Prussian hastened to continue. "You'd better believe I would, but since I've promised not to tell a living soul, I can't. Breaking promises is hardly awesome."

"You fucking idiot, if you are engaged in something illegal, I-"

"It's not anything illegal!" Gilbert exclaimed, frustrated. Damn it, why had it turned so complicated? "But tell me honestly, have you seen whom exactly I've been meeting?"

Romano pouted, arms stubbornly crossed over his chest. The Prussian gave him the most irresistible look he could muster. "Please?"

The Italian seemed to ponder this for a moment, then sighed, and finally uttered, "No."

"Come on, don't be an ass and tell me!"

"I told you already, you deaf imbecile! I said _no_, I haven't recognised anyone else but you!"

"Oh... Thanks. That's all I needed to know."

"Yeah, what-fucking-ever. I don't give a shit about your antics. Go and do as you please, as long as you don't fuck up your job." With those words, Romano turned around and started towards his own room. Gilbert remained on his spot, feeling somewhat bothered by what had just happened – and guilty.

"Hey, Romano!" he called after the retreating back. It didn't even halt, but the Prussian said what he wanted to say anyway. "Once it's all over, I promise I'll tell you everything. I swear, you'll get the best laugh in your whole life!"

Only then did the Italian halt for a moment. "Whatever," he grumbled. Then he took a few steps more and stopped again, glancing quickly at the Prussian. "You'd better remember your promise, or else... else you'll be the suckiest and the least awesome bastard ever!"

Gilbert gave a grin at this, relieved; Romano seemed to have if not forgiven him for keeping secrets, at least acquiesced with the not-really-an-explanation the Prussian had given him. Turning on his heels again, he made his way to the stalls, deep in thought and a small frown on his face.

Antonio was already waiting for him – if you could call dozing 'waiting'.

"Hey, wake up! I'm here."

"Mmm... Oh?" The Spaniard cracked open one of his sleepy eyes. "What took you so long?"

"Got a problem. Romano saw me, and apparently this was not the first time. It's all settled now, but he wanted an explanation."

"I hope you didn't give him the truthful one."

"What kind of ass do you take me for?"

Antonio raised his brows meaningfully and Gilbert decided to drop the matter. Instead he brought up a totally new one. "Say, Antonio... For what I've seen, Francis seems quite happy here. Are you quite sure we truly want to separate him and Arthur?"

"No, but this is just you wanting to stay here," the Spaniard uttered, amused. "Maybe it's just you not wanting to separate from your cute little stable boy."

Gilbert was torn between grinning mischievously and wincing at the blunt words of his friend. He settled for grinning, because it was so much more awesome than wincing. "Wow, who can claim that you're oblivious?" he laughed. "At least these kind of things you do see easily. Yeah, it's possible that I kind of like him."

"Of course I do, you are easily read. Besides, you happen to be my friend."

"Yeah... So what about you? Are you still keen on leaving?"

Antonio closed his eyes and hummed. "Not really. People are nice here, well, most of them, and Veneziano is great company. This lifestyle is rather comfortable to enjoy once in a while."

The two friends sat on a heap of hay in thoughtful silence for a while. Then Gilbert turned to Antonio again. "So. It appears we have to make our two dear friends fall in love with one another instead of separating them."

A slow grin spread on Antonio's lips on hearing this. "That, _amigo_, might not be so hard anymore."

"Huh?"

The Spaniard turned to his friend with a wide, sly smile plastered on his face. "Guess what I happened to see today? I saw the Prince following his fiancé to his room tonight... and I didn't see him coming out."

X

_Author's note:_ Wow, you really got a long one today! But things got out of my hands somehow; Francis' story was meant to be like two paragraphs, but no, I should have known our Frenchman. Of course he wanted to tell his story _his_ way. Speaking of which, I'm aware that Francis being a swineherd is somewhat a cliché, but hey, this is a fairytale, and those are full of clichés, no? And yes, Francis' surprise being a candlelight dinner is a bit boring an idea, but... His nature can't be helped!

...I actually had something to say in this AN but I forgot what it was. So, darlings, thank you for sticking with me, and I hope you like how things are progressing!


	9. When the Plot Bites Back

_Author's note_: First things first: go, take a look at my profile! Do you see it? The little flag over there? Good. Because, finally, it's the _right_ flag! ...Now that that's settled, we move on to a totally different matter. Which is

a huge, massive, TREMENDOUS _Thank You_ for each and every one of you who read this story and even more to those who bother to drop a review every now and then! I had never dared imagine that I would get more than 100 reviews, and while I realise how silly it is, I still am incredibly excited about it. XD So, forgive this authoress her silliness (and terribly slow updates), accept her gratitude and do continue enjoying this story till its very last letter.

Oh, wait! One more thing. Quite many of you told in your reviews that this is the first time of you seeing Prumano, so I just have to do some advertising. Everybody, please take a look at VampireNaomi's wonderful fic _Seeing Is Believing._ That's Prumano for you, and when you've read it, you'll realise that this pairing can only make sense. After that fic you can read the rest of her awesome Prumanos. (I can as well apologise here for the lack of focus on Prussia and Romano's relationship here, but there is no time and "space", unfortunately.)

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter Eight:**_

_**When the Plot Bites Back**_

"So, how has it been going, almost-prince charming?"

Francis shrugged, letting the overtly teasing comment pass. "Not half as bad as I had expected in the beginning. Rather fine actually." He smiled lightly. "Arthur is almost like a different person now that we are safely on his territory, much less of an uptight prick... Quite unlike when we first met him."

Antonio and Gilbert exchanged meaningful glances, both smirking slightly; like they had expected, Francis was visibly enjoying his life in the castle, and co-existence with a certain Prince Arthur Kirkland was obviously anything but unpleasant for him. So, grounds for the plan _Subtly Pushing Francis And Arthur Together_ were in their favour.

Indeed, life in general seemed to favour the Bad Touch Trio in every respect. For the three friends, who had lived the best part of their lives on the road, life in a castle was welcomed for a change and a new, interesting adventure in itself. Each and one of them had found their place in the everyday life, and while Antonio and Gilbert had to do their share of work (Francis, the lucky bastard!), they found even that enjoyable most of the time – like a new challenge. Not to mention the new acquaintances they had made... and maybe, just maybe, something more than mere acquaintances, too.

So, all in all, everything was rolling quite nicely for the three heroes. And when it was such a pleasant, sunny day and the wind was tangling their hair and they were riding with their horses like there were no tomorrow, in the awesome company of just the three of them and no one else, well, who could even think of complaining?

"It's been a while since we have last had a proper talk," Francis said contentedly after they had stopped at at a beautiful creek in the forest – the very same creek that Arthur had taken Francis to to apologise after the ball. The memory made the Frenchman smile as he stared into water, letting it remind him of that day. Somewhat surprised, he found himself feeling as if a century had passed since then.

"True. Who knew how much time actual work requires!" Gilbert mused, giving the Frenchman a friendly punch on his arm. "Though, what would _you_ know about that, lazy ass?"

Francis laughed and rubbed the spot where the Prussian had punched; clearly working at stables had not ceased Gilbert's strength at all, rather quite the opposite. "Hey, I'm not just resting on laurels all days long! I've been put to attend Arthur's lesson's in sword-fighting, riding and hunting among other studies like history and literature of this country. Speaking of which, these Englishmen are a bunch of philistines what comes to literature and art in general! As soon as the old King retires I'll introduce this poor kingdom the best French- what?"

Both Gilbert and Antonio were pointedly looking at their friend with raised eyebrows.

"What's with those looks? Antonio, seriously, don't do that, it just makes you look retarded."

"Ah, so it seems you already consider yourself the better half of the next ruler of the country?" the Spaniard asked coyly, not greatly affected by the Frenchman's words.

The said Frenchman, however, _was_ affected by his friend's words. With a highly artificial laughter he tried to wave the Spaniard's words off. "Don't be ridiculous, you know that I mean..." He strategically turned his face to the creek (and his back to his friends, thus missing their silent high-five). "That I mean, in case our plan will fail, which it won't, so no troubles on that front. Anyway," He turned to face his friends again, nearly catching the sly expressions they had barely time to hide. Nearly. "What have _you_ been up to, beside work?"

Antonio, clearly on a roll, was only happy to enlighten Francis. "Gilbert is in love with his Italian stableman!"

"You-!" The Prussian, suddenly red of his face, scored his second punch of the day. "I'm not_ in love_ with him!"

Despite Gilbert's determination to hold his tongue about the matter for ever, the knowing look Francis gave him made him give in the tiniest bit. "It's just... peculiar interest at most," he grumbled and shot a glare at Antonio. "I hope you know that one day your big mouth will make you pay."

"Nah," Antonio said matter-of-factly. "That's what I have you for."

"Hey, hold on a moment!" Francis suddenly exclaimed. "How come _he_ knew about it and I didn't?" He pointed an accusing finger at the Spaniard, eyes on Gilbert, demanding for an answer.

"It's just that you are never there when we meet at night to-"

"To start preparations for putting our plan to action!" Gilbert hurriedly interrupted before Antonio would reveal anything crucial that Francis just didn't need to know.

The Frenchman didn't look convinced. "At _night?"_

"Well, when else? In daytime we are far to busy. Besides, at night we are less likely to get caught and suspected of plotting anything." Though, that was exactly what had happened, thanks to Romano.

"Right," Francis said, but he still had this doubtful tone, so Gilbert, being the excellent strategist he was, relied on distraction. "Speaking of night, I heard you spent the whole night with Arthur quite recently."

Taking advantage of Francis turning his back on them again, Gilbert hissed to Antonio, "Idiot, what you have in muscles you lack in your brains! What did I just say about your big mouth?"

"If you have to ask, your memory must be as short as your-"

"If you finish that sentence I swear I slaughter you!"

"What on earth are you two going about?"

"War!" Gilbert growled, but Antonio smiled in his typical, relaxed way. "Oh, just talking about Gil's insecurities concerning his manhood."

"What," Francis laughed heartily, only glad that his case was dropped.

Not that anything that _grand_ had happened on that nigh of surprises. Arthur and himself had finished their meal and dessert, and then Francis had (with great effort, mind you!) talked Arthur into reading him aloud one of Arthur's favourite tales. After that they had both felt rather drowsy, at least Francis had, so again, the Frenchman had put to use all his skills as persuader to get Arthur to lie down for a bit, just to briefly rest before separating for their respective chambers. Well, as Francis had planned and hoped, sleep got to the Englishman before he had found it in himself to leave, and it wasn't until the next morning when the Prince had realised, startled, just where he had spent his night, and hurried away, all stumbles and splutters. That was the morning of the day prior to the present one, and Arthur still acted positively embarrassed in Francis' company. It was so... so _cute._

(Or then he felt awkward because Francis' subtle advances were highly unwanted.)

"Hey, Frenchie, don't even begin hoping that this would save you from revealing your scandalous night with the Prince!"

The smile that had momentarily faded from Francis' lips was there again as he looked at his two hilarious friends. Be his odd relationship with Arthur blurry as it was, one of the many things he had in common with Gilbert and Antonio was that he always lived in the moment, and that particular moment wasn't for despairing. It was a fine day after all, and with his friends (fooling) around, Francis couldn't have found room for angst even if he had wanted.

"Scandalous?" he repeated, raising his eyebrow and hiding behind his amused expression – there were things he wasn't quite yet ready to share even with his closest friends, things that would be detrimental for the escape plan if properly acknowledged. "We are merely acting out our simple plan."

_Simple plan_, Antonio thought while Gilbert and Francis both busied themselves accusing one another of falling in love and messing up, each denying the other's accusations. _Maybe to Francis it's simple; he's engaged only in one plot, liking Arthur. But there is a plot within that one, too, the actual escape plot, but that's mostly Gil and mine concern to make it happen. Though, to actually make it happen, we have the kissing plot with Arthur, after all the escape won't work if that one fails. But wait, we just recently got it established with Gilbert that we don't even want the escape plot to work, so now we are plotting to push Francis and Arthur together!_

_...Huh?_

_So here we have a plot within a plot within a plot, which is within the main plot. _Antonio shook his head, overly confused._ Wow, impressive. It would make a funny story, were the idea not so silly._

He looked at his two best friends, who were now sitting at the creek and chatting idly about something of hardly any intelligence, and couldn't help wondering, _What exactly are we even trying to achieve here? At this rate we'll only end up tangled in this web of plots..._

xXx

While the peculiar trio was enjoying the lovely, carefree feeling of not being required anywhere, a certain prince was occupying himself with not so pleasant and carefree musings in the garden of the castle.

Arthur sauntered among fragrant apple trees and neatly cut bushes and splendid flowerbeds, yet neither did he see their beauty nor did he smell their scent. His eyes were fixed on his own boots instead, the leather material gathering moisture from grass due to the rain of the previous night; should the Prince not be careful, he would find his feet soaked and boots irreparably covered in mud in no time.

Arthur had no intentions on being careful. In fact, he didn't spare a damn thought for his boots in spite of staring at them; his mind was somewhere else, on more pressing issues that Arthur could no longer deny, no matter how persistently he tried.

One: The wedding was approaching – two more weeks.

Two: Francis was yet to kiss Arthur.

Three: The side effect of the curse was, with alarming speed, becoming the_ main effect _of it.

It wasn't a problem, really; as soon as Francis would kiss Arthur the curse would be gone, and so would all the disturbing, restless and odd feelings that it had brought along. Thus there shouldn't be a problem... and yet there was, and a huge one at that.

Because Arthur no longer was all that sure that he wished for those feelings to be gone. Hell, he wasn't sure at all that he wished for _Francis_ to be gone!

Sometimes he played with an idea that he wouldn't even try to win the curse any more. Having Francis in the castle was... it was more entertaining than his previous normal life, _entertaining_, nothing more to it, darn it! The wedding wouldn't have to mean anything, it could be just a ceremony, merely to keep up an appearance. And even though Francis would have to kiss Arthur in the wedding ceremony, it wouldn't be of his free will, so the curse would stay on and Francis would stay in the castle... against his own will.

Arthur crouched to push the leg of his trousers deeper into the boot. It had gone wet.

That was the stumbling block of the idea. That is, even_ if_ Arthur had seriously considered keeping Francis in the castle. If, _if_ he wanted Francis to stay, he didn't want it to be by force. It would... it wouldn't be right. And it would only hur- it would be _less entertaining_ to live with the constantly nagging knowledge of Francis' heart longing somewhere else.

So, for the best of all of them, Francis had better kiss him soon, yet he had made it clear enough that he had no intentions to; with so many perfect chances, it could not be an accident nor a coincidence that the Frenchman hadn't even as much as shown any interest in the Englishman.

Which led back to the problem number two, which led back to the problem number one, while the problem number three was present all along.

"Arthur Kirkland," Arthur said to himself, "You are royally screwed."

To emphasise his declaration, the royally screwed Prince kicked an unfortunate statue that happened to exist where it perhaps shouldn't have – in the Prince's proximity, that is. "Shit!"

Why couldn't Francis like him? Why couldn't he like him enough only to kiss him bloody _once_, even if it was merely experimental, or out of curiosity, or just to fuck up with his mind, anything! Was he really too busy playing out his new role as royalty to find interest in Arthur? He was fucking selfish, that's what he was! Were he less narcissistic, he might have kissed the Englishman already and the whole problem would have been over and done with, but no, of course not, _monsieur_ Bonne-fucking-foy was simply too good for him, and in one way or other their plan would fail and they'd end up m-

_Wait._ Arthur halted mid-step, a new, terrifying possibility occurring to him. What if... Now that he thought about it, the frog (the one who had cast the curse) had never said that the frog Arthur was to marry would be someone particular, that it would be _Francis__**.**_ Maybe, if Francis, according to their plan, escaped without a single kiss, the curse _wouldn't_ bring him back – after all, the cursed one was Arthur and not him. So if Francis left for good, before long the curse would just make _another_ random Frenchie marry Arthur. And although Francis would be gone, the curse wouldn't, and so Arthur would be stuck with the tormenting side effect for ever...

"When did my life become this surreal?" the poor Prince groaned covering his face in his hands, not knowing what was true and what was false. "This happens only in fairy tales, not in real life!"

There was only one thing that could help at times like that, and it was riding. (Drinking would be even better an option, but a prince couldn't just hit the bottle in the middle of a brightest day, so Arthur had to rely on riding in order to empty his troubled mind.) With determined strides he made his way to the stables, expecting to find Romano and Gilbert at each other's throats like he so often did, but only Romano was there to greet him when he arrived at the stables.

"Look who's here," the Italian muttered, hardly even sparing one look for the Prince. "What do you want?"

"A bottle of good whiskey will do, just bring it fast."

This time Romano actually bothered to look at him. "What," he said in unimpressed tone, his peculiar curl twitching with irritation. Arthur rolled his eyes. "What do you think I might want from here?" he asked sarcastically; he wasn't in the best of moods, and Romano's behaviour was only encouraging him further. "Certainly not to see your friendly face, that much is sure."

It occurred that apparently the Italian himself was in rather bad spirits, for he instantly offered Arthur what the Englishman perhaps needed to let some of his frustration out: an opponent.

"A friendly face is something you will never see unless you go through a major change of attitude, princey-prick!"

"Very true – if you say that while looking in a mirror, that is. Soon you might find it your only friend!"

"Even that would be more than what you would have! At least _my_ reflection wouldn't scream 'animal abuser' into my face every time I see it!"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Well_ I _don't nail half-dead caterpillars to my forehead, that's what I mean!"

"Ha ha ha, that was a good one!"

Both Arthur and Romano started and whirled around to see nothing else but the infamous Retarded Friends Trio at the doorway of the stable, each with their respective yet equally infuriating expressions; Gilbert was cackling at the scene, Antonio was smiling with his oh-how-cute face and Francis watched the two wranglers condescendingly, with his eyebrows raised.

"Goodness, you two," he said, feigning astonishment.

"How long have you stood there, bastards?" Romano demanded, cheeks reddening in anger and embarrassment for being taken by surprise.

"Since-" Antonio started happily, but Gilbert and Francis cut him off in unison. "We just arrived!"

"Fabulous," Arthur said. "Now that you are here, feel free to fuck off. The faster the better."

"Aww, we are not allowed to see the rest of the show?" Gilbert pouted, and Arthur and Romano exchanged glances; as the universal truth had it, minor arguments could be forgotten in order to unite against a shared enemy.

"What show? I simply stopped by to say hello."

"If that was saying hello, I wouldn't want to know what saying goodbye is!" Francis laughed, though quickly stopped as Romano shot a death glare at him. "In that case you'd better leave now before you find out!" the Italian threatened, and Arthur had to admit that he did look pretty much ready to slaughter all the three intruders if they stayed in his stables any longer than that.

"I think we should leave them alone," Antonio suggested in a friendly way, and for one reason or another, the two others agreed.

"Fucking losers," Romano growled the moment the three invaders had disappeared. Arthur made an approving sound and sighed. "Are they causing troubles for you, too?"

"Do you even have to ask?"

"No, I suppose not."

Romano didn't explain any further and Arthur didn't ask. There was a brief silence during which the Italian returned to putting hay into the stables and Arthur stood by Macbeth, idly caressing the mare's black neck, lost in thoughtlessness. Romano and his quarrel was forgotten – there had been no real malice behind the words, and even if there _had_ been some, all the venom was directed at something – or rather, somebody – else.

"So," Romano broke the silence. "Macbeth?"

"Forget it. I changed my mind."

Arthur found it somewhat comforting, just being there at the stables in soothing presence of big, calm animals and the sulky stableman (as long as he kept more or less quiet). Worrying was useless, he thought, useless and draining, so he would just have to stop it and let everything flow naturally. _I'll stay calm and dignified, come what may_.

This newly made resolution was immediately put to trial as no one else but Francis peeked in through the wooden doors and scanned the room. When his eyes spotted Arthur, a large smile appeared on his face. "There you are," he said.

"What do _you_ want?" Romano demanded, but he sounded more tired than truly spiked.

"Only Arthur," Francis replied soothingly and Arthur had to remind himself of his resolution. "It's nearly dinnertime and you," the Frenchman spoke to Arthur now, "were supposed to show me where the room with the old scripts is."

Arthur sighed, shrugged and gave one last pat to Macbeth. "So Mrs Boleyn considers you worthy enough to see them? Incredible. I'm surprised it happened this soon," he said dryly. "I should have gone riding after all."

"Fucking hindsight," Romano stated.

Days passed frighteningly quickly after that, with little variation. Arthur and Francis' mornings were occupied with physical lessons, usually involving either riding or fencing. Then, as a rule, after lunch they would have lessons on subjects as literature, history or arithmetic, which occupied most of their afternoons. If they were (in Arthur's opinion) unlucky enough, they would sometimes have to cope with lessons on etiquette and socialising. Francis seemed to enjoy those particular lessons immensely and undeniably showed certain professionalism in them, which naturally infuriated Arthur, to whom it was perfectly enough to know how to be polite and gentlemanly; everything else was merely icing on the cake – useless flattery too sweet to swallow.

Later in afternoons, however, Francis and Arthur could spend their time however they wished until the dinner, and more often than not they found themselves sticking together even though they didn't really have to. It always seemed to happen by chance; either Francis wanted to see some place or another in London outside the walls of the castle, or Arthur offered to take the Frenchman riding to show him nearby villages. During those little trips the Prince couldn't ignore Francis' genuine, happy smiles, or how he laughed when they took races on impulse and his long, gorgeous hair danced with the wind. In those moments Arthur couldn't help realising over and over again that Francis was made for freedom, not for boring, stuffy castles, and that realisation stung deeper and deeper every time. And yet Arthur couldn't find it in himself to bring up the topic of execution of their escape plan.

That was until, six days before the expected wedding, King Lionheart summoned his son to his room before the dinner, and reality crushed back down.

"Arthur," the old King spoke gravely, "Surely you must suspect the reason I wanted to talk to you tonight."

"Umm," Arthur said, because even if he did suspect, by no means was he eager to hear what his father might want to tell him. Not under the current circumstances.

"Thought so," the King uttered dryly. "So. You are probably aware of the fact that in about a week, you'll go through a ceremony that will tie you together with the man of your heart's choice for ever."

Arthur rolled his eyes and shifted awkwardly. "So now he's the choice of my heart? What a selective memory you have."

"That's how history is written, son. Besides," Lionheart lifted one of his huge, grey eyebrows meaningfully. "even if he wasn't before, he evidently is now."

_Apparently the gradually-falling-in-love plot was successful. Bloody brilliant._ "So did you have some actual business to talk about, old man, or can I just go?"

The King sighed. Sometimes he could hear his young self in his son's words, which never failed to put him in sentimental mood. Naturally, he would hide it the best he could – another feature his son shared with him. Lionheart could not be prouder of his son – and yet he didn't want him to repeat the same mistakes the old King himself had done in the past. Breaking through the wall of pride wasn't painless at the young age, but every passing year made it ten times worse. The King knew this by experience, and he wished Arthur would understand that while he was still young.

"Bloody brat," he said fondly. "Very well, you asked for it: we are starting the preparation of the wedding tomorrow. You and Francis will be skipping your physical morning lessons in favour of rehearsing for the ceremony. Daily. I expect you to inform your fiancé about this." He uttered a laughter. "Still so eager to go now?"

"Aa..." the poor Prince made a miserable sound and covered his face in his hands. "Father..."

"Don't worry, lad." the King patted encouragingly his son's back. "Every generation is to overpass the previous one. If I could do it, so can you. And look at the positive side! Wedding is something you have to experience only once in your life."

"That's exactly the problem," was Arthur's muttered reply.

X

_Author's note (again): _Something happened to this site. :0


	10. Reality of a Faery Tale

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter Nine:**_

_**Reality of a Faery Tale**_

Francis' blue eyes stared at Arthur as if dumbfounded. "Wedding rehearsal?"

Arthur, positively in sour mood (like he had continuously been for the past week or so), only nodded in response and kept his own eyes trained on a tree down in the garden.

"Wow," Francis muttered, massaging the bridge of his nose. "I hadn't even... it really came so fast. A month isn't that long after all when you stop thinking about it. Even here," he added, but the poor attempt of a joke didn't get any response from Arthur, so Francis, too, shut his mouth and turned to look out of the window. They stood like that for some time, looking anywhere but at each other, trying to pretend that the matter was completely settled at that and there was absolutely nothing more to say.

At least that's what Arthur did. And in a way, there really wasn't anything more to say from his part; he wouldn't tell Francis to leave, but he wouldn't ask him to stay, either, not even for the life of his.

Pride. It has always been his greatest weakness. (And maybe there was some fear of rejection, but there was no way Arthur would admit _that_ even to himself, which lead back to _pride._)

Francis, however, finally decided to voice what both were thinking. He cleared his throat. "So. I suppose we should agree on the date of departure."

In spite of having fully expected those words, Arthur couldn't save his heart from sinking. Silently reminding himself that he was a prince so he should act like one, he focused on keeping his voice emotionless. "Yes."

"In that case. Well. How about. How about two days before the wedding?"

"Three." Arthur's voice was firm and steady. "Three days. Leaving for only one night would seem a bit girlish. Leave three days before the wedding, so that your supposed return would be the day before the ceremony."

"Right."

"You'll leave with Gilbert and Antonio. No one will suspect anything, because nobles never travel alone." _Is this me talking?_ Arthur felt as if he was someone else, as if his body had no connections to his mind, so fluently did his words flow. "And if I recall correctly, we told no one that you three are friends, so it's unlikely for anybody to suspect you three run off."

"How lucky am I to have you considered everything to the very details," Francis said, and Arthur wasn't quite sure whether there was sarcasm in his voice or had he merely imagined it.

"Someone has to," the Prince responded quieter than he had intended.

At that very moment the bell rang calling everybody for dinner, and without another word, Arthur turned his back on Francis and walked away.

The dinner proceeded like normally – on the surface, that is. Like each and every evening since Francis' arrival, the closer the wedding day sneaked, the murkier the King became, and he kept either shooting impressive glares at the Frenchman or, conversely, pointedly ignoring him as far as courtesy rules allowed. It had never seemed to bother Francis though, for the Frenchman apparently enjoyed tormenting his supposedly soon-to-be father-in-law. Usually he kept actively starting or attending conversations, making sure to address the King for his opinion on some subject matter or another and thus forcing the old man to reply in order to maintain his own etiquette. This always annoyed the King to no end, but what infuriated (as much as secretly delighted) him even more was the fact Francis was incredibly clever a debater. It had even become a habit for the two to start a conversation or debate and try to beat the other one in every aspect possible, using conventions of behaviour as much as rhetorics.

Watching those shows rarely failed to entertain Arthur, but that particular evening he couldn't as much as pretend to be following the conversation. Even Francis, in contrast to his usual playfulness and talkativeness, was uncharacteristically silent, which wasn't left unnoticed by the King. The old man, however, didn't comment the awkward atmosphere in any way, both to relief and surprise of Arthur.

Eventually the dinner came to the end. Instead of joining the court in the great hall for music, Arthur decided to withdraw into his room; he felt like immersing himself in his favourite books instead of joyful company of the habitants of the castle. Maybe he'd read a story with an unhappy ending, just to remind himself that not all faerie tales ended well – or then he'd choose a happily ending tale, to remind himself that faery tales were faery tales and had nothing to do with reality. He, however, didn't make it to his room – Antonio caught him in the hallway.

"_Hola,_ Arthur!" he chimed happily. "Are you not going to go to great hall tonight?"

"No," Arthur said and braced himself for protests; Antonio had already very early found it his mission to encourage people to take part in social gatherings. But, for once, that wasn't the Spaniard's goal.

"Perfect!" he exclaimed and grabbed the Prince's wrist. "Then you are free tonight. Follow me!"

It wasn't as if Arthur had much of a choice; Antonio's grip was firm, and in spite of all Arthur's objections the groom dragged the Englishman out of the castle and into the garden.

"What's your problem?" Arthur demanded once the Spaniard let go of his hand, but then his eyes took in his surroundings and he fell silent.

There, in the protection of evening darkness and apple trees and flower bushes, was a small fire, securely surrounded by stones to prevent the fire from escaping, and at that fire, right on the grass, were sitting Gilbert and Francis. The two ceased to chat with each other on noticing Antonio and Arthur, and looked at them, greeting them with smiles. Arthur suddenly got a strong feeling of _d__éjà vu_ and shuddered, remembering how he had first met the peculiar trio and how at that moment his current downhill had begun. (Even then his mind refused to recollect that in fact his downhill had begun ten years earlier the moment he had shown not so much courtesy to a certain frog.)

"What is this?" he asked a bit rudely. "Are you trying to burn down my garden?"

"Hey, no need to be a prick there!" Gilbert instantly retorted – always ready, Arthur thought. "Antonio and I just wanted to relax with friends a bit, you know, maybe _for the last time_, and this is the thanks we get?"

Arthur crossed his arms over his chest and didn't say anything; even if Gilbert was right, he would not admit it aloud. (And Gilbert _was_ right, damn him, he was right and in a couple of days he, too, would be gone, and after that Arthur would be always right again, because there would be no one who would tell him otherwise.)

"Sit," Antonio urged, and the Englishman complied, finding a spot beside the Prussian and the Spaniard to avoid any physical contact with a certain Frenchman. If Francis was somehow disappointed by this, at least he didn't show it, merely gave Arthur a barely noticeable wink over the fire – he seemed to have returned to his normal self. Unnecessarily troubled by such vulgar actions, Arthur turned to Gilbert to ask what exactly was on their mind, but was cut off before he could even start.

"Oh look, Romano, they are already all there!"

"Wha- _They_?"

With this, Veneziano and apparently unpleasantly surprised Romano entered the scene.

"Hey you two, fancy seeing you here," Gilbert said playfully, turning to the brothers, and Romano instantly turned to his brother. "You plotting traitor!" he yelled. "You never mentioned there would be other people plus two assholes here!"

"Eek, I'm sorry, I forgot!" Veneziano squealed and quickly skittered to sit beside Francis, out of his brother's reach. "But it sounded so fun to spend a great evening all together when Antonio told me about it and I thought you would like it too because you always just withdraw in your own room and-"

"I don't! And this is stupid!"

"Aww, Romano! I thought you would like to spend some time with me," the younger Italian whined, tears coming to his eyes.

"Don't worry, he doesn't mean it," Gilbert reassured Veneziano and grinned at the elder brother, correctly believing to be one of the two mentioned assholes (who was the other one, only Romano knew). "Now that you are here, you can as well sit down. There is no point in going back and forth between the stables and the garden for nothing. _That_ would be stupid."

"Hmph." Romano was clearly torn between leaving and staying, but the latter won. "Fine. But I'll stay only because if I don't, I'll have to bear with Veneziano's whining for ever." The older Italian positioned himself beside his brother, giving first Francis and then Gilbert suspicious looks.

"_Espléndido_!" Antonio exclaimed contentedly. "Now that we are all happily here, we can enjoy ourselves."

The five young men sat around the fire side by side, shoulders almost touching, and the intimacy of their circle, the shadows of the evening and the warmth of the fire soon lulled Arthur into comfortable, secure feeling of timelessness. At first they all sat silent, then someone made a comment about something, which started an idle conversation about this and that. When they eventually fell all silent again, Antonio reached behind himself and revealed a string instrument Arthur hadn't noticed earlier, probably due to darkness.

"This is my dear flamenco guitar," Antonio said softly, his fingers gently moving along the strings. "She has been with me for a long, long time."

Not waiting for anybody to answer, he started playing the instrument, his fingers running expertly on the strings. It was amazing; Arthur got the impression that the Spaniard was setting free the soft chords that flowed into the night to dance in the open air. First Antonio played faster songs with a catchy tempo, but then he took a break and when he started again, his songs were slower, calmer, and most of all, clearly more romantic. That was also when Antonio started to sing – his voice was rich and deep as Spanish lyrics flowed from his lips, and Arthur, just like everybody else around the fire, found he was enchanted. It felt to him as if the night itself was breathing magic that very evening, entwining the small group in its secrets, filling their hearts with undefined emotions and calling to release those same emotions into the air.

_That's right_, Arthur vaguely thought, _there must be magic in the air. Otherwise I would never regret not sitting beside Francis_. The thought made him steal a quick peek at the Frenchman, who, like all the others, had his eyes fixed on fire. Seeing the Frenchman so serene and watching the game of flames apparently deep in though made Arthur unwillingly imagine how it would feel like, leaning his head on that safe shoulder and holding that hand in his own.

Suddenly, as always, Francis interrupted the Englishman's track of thoughts by raising his eyes from the fire and catching Arthur gazing at him. Remarkably, there were no smug smirks on his lips – in fact, his face stayed perfectly neutral. Yet in his eyes, behind the shadows cast by orange flames, there Arthur located a warm smile, and didn't know what to do or where to look.

Fate seemed to save him once more; final chords of the guitar faded into the night and Antonio stopped playing with a happy sigh. The magic around let go a bit, and Arthur tore his eyes from Francis to Veneziano, who immediately on Antonio finishing started talking. "Wow, Antonio, that was amazing! I didn't know you could play any instruments!"

The Spaniard smiled. "She is my first love," he said, referring to the guitar. "I learnt playing guitar when I was a child."

"I have never heard Spanish songs before," Arthur said to say something. Antonio grinned and readily turned to him.

"Really? How did you like them? I played almost all the Spanish love songs I know."

"Do you know any English ones?" Gilbert asked indifferently. "You know, now that we are in England and all."

"Oh, funny you should ask!" Antonio chimed casually. "I actually happened to learn one when I was at a local pub the other day. Would you like to hear it?"

"Yes please!" Veneziano clapped his hands enthusiastically. "And then you can learn Italian and French and-"

"Shush," was all that Romano said, sleepily yet effectively silencing his brother although the large smile never left the younger Italian's face.

"Great!" And Antonio lifted his guitar on his lap again and began to sing.

Arthur's cheeks started gradually heating up. The Spaniard had indeed learnt an English love song, and even one of Arthur's favourites at that.

"_Alas, my love, you do me wrong, to cast me off discourteously_. _For I have loved you well and long, delighting in your company_..."

It wasn't fair, Arthur thought, how his mind seemed to turn to Francis even at the mention of the word love song, especially now that he could understand every word that passed Antonio's lips. It wasn't fair how Arthur's stupid heart seemed to interpret every word as if they had been born from his own life and feelings and not from an unknown poet's pen.

"_Your vows you've broken, like my heart, oh, why did you so enrapture me?_ "

_There are no vows he could have broken_, Arthur scolded himself,_ His only vow was to get away from here and he is only bloody happy to keep it! And what concerns enrapturing, it's all due to the curse!_

"_If you intend thus to disdain, it does the more enrapture me, and even so, I still remain a lover in captivity._"

But try as he may, Arthur couldn't deny the truth: his secret romantic side had got stronger and louder during the past days and weeks and now demanded to be heard – and although the Englishman didn't want to listen, it wasn't in his power to silence his heart. _Stop lying_, it demanded, and Arthur couldn't help glancing at Francis for one more time. This time it was him who caught the Frenchman staring, and he started at seeing the blue eyes bored into him so intently. But Francis didn't bother pretending he hadn't looked at Arthur, and the Englishman couldn't find it in himself to turn away.

After all, only in three days he would never see those eyes again, so he might as well memorise them now.

Only when Antonio finished the song and put his guitar away did the couple break their locked eyes. The Spaniard stood up from his place and stretched his back. "My, how late it is!" he uttered. "Come, Veneziano, we have an early morning tomorrow."

"But I'm not ti-" A yawn cut off the younger Italian's protest, and he changed his mind. "I'm too sleepy to walk," he whined instead.

"Don't complain, you manage sleep walking perfectly well in your work time so it shouldn't make a difference now," Arthur remarked, making all others – including Veneziano and excluding his brother – chuckle.

"_Buenas noches_," Antonio said and left with his guitar and Veneziano.

"Well, I should-" Arthur started, getting up, but Gilbert didn't let him finish.

"Romano and I will take our leave now, too," he quickly interrupted. "Look at him – poor guy exhausted himself at the stables today." It was true; one of the studs had fallen ill and Romano had taken care of him the whole day. Now Romano's body had claimed its right to rest; the stableman's head was resting on the Prussian's shoulder in a way that would have never happened had Romano been in even half of his senses. "Could you two take care of extinguishing the fire?"

"Sure," Francis said, smiling. "Take care of your... hm, Romano."

"What were you about to say?" Arthur asked him as they watched Gilbert leading awakened, sleepily grumbling Romano away.

"I don't know," Francis admitted. "Saying 'lover' would have been inappropriate because they are not exactly lovers yet."

"Yet?" Arthur asked and looked down at Francis, confused. The Frenchman grabbed his wrist and tugged, signalling for him to sit back down, and Arthur's stomach did flips. "Yes, yet," Francis said and held the Englishman's wrist until he complied. "I hadn't even realised it until Antonio told me."

"What... You don't mean..?"

"I do," Francis said. "Look at them! Aren't they just complementing one another so well? Both of them have somewhat rough personalities, but... Well, I don't know about Romano, but Gilbert actually has a heart beneath that armour of what he calls awesomeness."

"No wonder Romano has been in such a terrible mood lately," Arthur mused, too tired himself to be properly scandalised. "He handles it pretty well for somebody who realises to be in love with Gilbert."

"Come off it! Gilbert is not that bad at all. Where from have you got that idea?"

Arthur shot a glare at the Frenchman. "Oh, I don't know!" he retorted sarcastically, crossing his arms. "Maybe the first time I met you all?"

Francis laughed. "Oh dear, first impressions truly never die then."

"Damn right."

Francis didn't take the quarrel further and Arthur let it be, too. After all, it was a beautiful night, he was sitting together with Francis – right beside him, this time – and though the nightly air was cool, both fire and the Frenchman's body offered him plenty of heat to stay comfortable and not to freeze. To boot, Arthur didn't need much imagination to hear the soft chords of Antonio's guitar still lingering there, dancing with flames, and such a magical, soothing atmosphere was too precious to break with pointless bickering.

Neither of the two young men did bring up the idea of distinguishing the fire and leaving, despite it being terribly late. Instead, they both sat side by side, listening to the cracking of logs, and Arthur wondered if there was a way to keep that moment his forever.

xXx

"Move your head, I can't see a thing!"

"Shh, not so loud! We don't want them to hear us, do we?"

Sure thing they didn't – Antonio and Gilbert, that is. After the two had made sure each of their respective Italians had been taken care of (in other words, now safely sleeping back in their own beds), they had returned to the scene of crime as soon as possible; being the masterminds behind the overly genius plan to get some action between a certain two, naturally the two plotters wanted to see the results of their awesomeness. For, this time they were sure, they would finally get some concrete results, so favourable was the setting – romantic music and evening and all.

Too bad though that stalking wasn't quite as glorious as one might imagine.

"Antonio," Gilbert said falteringly after a long silence during which there was more action in the bushes where the two friends were lurking than between their targets at the fire. "I think there is something long and hairy and with many legs crawling under my shirt."

"Don't be silly, even from this distance I can tell that Arthur's eyebrows haven't left him yet."

"That was so_ fucking hilarious_, Toni," Gilbert hissed, shuddering at the image that Antonio's words created as much as at the itchy feeling on his back. The Spaniard's joke would have been funny, had there not been an army of bugs on Gilbert's back at that very moment. "Shit, either that thing was just apportioned or it has a friend!"

"Hush, I want to hear if Francis and Arthur start talking!"

"They haven't uttered a word since our arrival!"

"Stop wiggling!"

"Yeah, well how about you try offering your body to a feasting load of bugs and we'll see how much you will want to stay still! ...Oh, you already started."

"Started what?" Antonio turned to Gilbert, alarmed. The Prussian shrugged indifferently. "Hosting bugs. That one on your head is rather impressive."

"I thought it was just a stick! Take it off!"

"Take it off yourself!"

"Disgusting." The Spaniard shuddered. "I'll make sure the gardener will hear about this... Oh, look Gil, hush, Arthur is moving!"

"You are the one blabbering!"

"_Shh!_"

"We should probably put out the fire," the two heard the Englishman say hesitantly, standing up.

"Wait," Francis said rather hastily, and his fingers touched Arthur's briefly. "Don't go yet. After all, this is one of our last evenings together."

"But... We... we have an early morning tomorrow."

"Forget it," Francis said, more quietly now, so that the two stalkers almost couldn't catch his words. "Come on, Arthur. Join me."

"Join him," Antonio and Gilbert urged together.

Arthur did. Carefully he sat back down, avoiding looking in the Frenchman's direction. Francis smiled (stupidly, Gilbert would add) and took Arthur's hand, bringing it up and brushing his lips lightly along the knuckles. Arthur, on his part, went all rigid and shot a glare at the Frenchman, who laughed and released his hand.

"What the hell are you doing?" Arthur asked, barely avoiding stammering.

"Is he flushing?" Gilbert asked, momentarily forgetting his discomfort.

"He is definitely flushing," Antonio confirmed, satisfied.

"Don't be so uptight," Francis chuckled. "It was merely a thank you."

"What sort of thank you is that, you sod?" Arthur raged, visibly flustered. It amused Antonio and annoyed Gilbert.

There was a moment of stillness during which Arthur, almost pouting yet red-faced, glared at Francis, who gazed at his fiancé with an expression his two friends rarely saw; the one Francis had whenever he was about to do something that might cost him his life. "You are right," the Frenchman said slowly. "That was not a proper thank you."

"Gil," Antonio started, perplexed, but the Prussian didn't have time to respond, because right then Francis reached with his hand and placed it on Arthur's cheek, stroking it with his thumb. Arthur was apparently paralysed, because he didn't shy away, and Antonio knew what was to happen next. Barely breathing, he turned to look at Gilbert – and at the huge, no, _tremendous_ spider on his shoulder. Whoops, better not mention that to the Prussian...

Gilbert looked at the Spaniard, saw him staring at his shoulder, and followed his look to see what could possibly be more interesting than the scene before them.

What followed next happened all in mere _moments._

Gilbert's eyes widened in terror like two crimson bloodstains on white fabric while Antonio proved the speed of his reflexes; the Spaniard smacked his hand over the Prussian's mouth to muffle the upcoming yelp. Gilbert's hand roamed frantically on the ground to find something to brush off the spider with, but his action proved needless; the icky thing escaped easily on Antonio's arm – apparently it had connected the two stalkers with a web before either of them had noticed. Now, Antonio, who, despite not being terrified of bugs like his friend, was not particularly fond of them, either. So, reflexively, the Spaniard slammed his arm against a tree trunk beside him to get rid of the eight-legged offender.

This sequence of actions costed the life of one poor spider and a kiss that was never delivered.

"What was that?" an alarmed voice asked.

Gilbert and Antonio both froze, not daring move, eyes locked together.

"Probably just a rabbit in the bushes or something." A chuckle. "Relax, you are so jumpy."

Slowly, ever so slowly, the two stalkers turned their eyes on their targets. Arthur was on his feet, still scanning the surroundings with his eyes, but eventually calmed down and lowered himself on the ground by Francis' side again. "A hell of a rabbit if it caused that hassle," he muttered.

Francis smiled and placed the tip of his fingers on Arthur's throat. "Your heart beats so fast," he said, feeling the pulse. "You are like a rabbit yourself. Alarmed by the faintest sounds, careful..."

"S-shut up, I'm not..." Arthur put his palm on Francis' arm to push his hand away from his throat, and he succeeded – in a way. Francis captured his hand between his own two hands and grinned. "Got you," he said, planted a small kiss on Arthur's knuckles and then released the Prince's hand in favour of sliding his fingers up his arm to take a good hold there.

"Francis," Arthur started, sounding as if he was out of breath, but whatever he was going to say next was to remain a mystery forever.

"Who's there?" a stern voice demanded, and Gilbert and Antonio turned their heads to see a guard approaching the small fire.

"Hell," the Prussian muttered, and Antonio got an urge to squeeze his eyes closed to avoid seeing what would happen next – maybe the guard was merely a nightmare, a product of his imagination?

Too bad that wasn't the case. As soon as Arthur and Francis heard the voice, the Englishman started and tore himself out of Francis' immediate proximity, hopping on his feet once again. This time he was followed by the Frenchman.

"It's just me. Er, us," Arthur said, visibly struggling to sound calm and composed and not frustrated or disappointed at all.

"My Prince." The guard – a man in his late forties – looked surprised. "Forgive me, I did not expect to find you here. I saw a fire from my place and decided to make sure everything is in order."

"Everything is in order," Francis said, just the tiniest bit murkily.

"Splendid." The guard hesitated a bit. "Forgive me, but don't you think it might be for the best to extinguish the fire? We haven't had rain for a while, and the grass is dangerously dry."

Although the guard's words came out in a form of question, the authority in his voice was evident to everybody – even Gilbert. "Fucking mood-killer," he hissed, and Antonio couldn't but agree.

"You are right," Arthur said, resignedly, and the guard smiled softly. "Let me, my Prince," he said and got to work. Francis and Arthur just stood there watching him, not looking at one another. When the guard was done, he suggested to escort the two to their rooms to not alarm other guards, and soon they were all gone, only leaving smoking ashes behind.

"Well, shit," Gilbert said, not losing time in getting out of the bushes as soon as it was safe.

"I'm starting to believe that Arthur's curse includes bad luck in it," Antonio said. "That's the only explanation to why Francis hasn't got to kissing him yet."

"We are running out of time." Gilbert sighed and looked at where the fire had been. It had been put out just like the evidently blooming romance-in-denial had been. That fucking guard.

"And chances," Antonio pointed out. "The life is starting to be rather hectic in the castle due to the wedding. Everybody, including me and Francis and Arthur, have loads to do."

"Well," Gilbert said sadly, the scowling face of Romano emerging vivid before his eyes. "Better start preparations for the 'hunting trip' then."

X

_Author's note_: The English love song Antonio sang here is of course _Greensleeves_, written in medieval England. The legend has it that King Henry VIII composed it to Anne Boleyn, who turned the King down as is expressed in the lyrics. Anne Boleyn did eventually become the second wife of Henry VIII after all, but was later beheaded by the orders of the very same Henry VIII. This legend of Henry composing the song, though, is probably only a legend.

...I know most of you probably already know all this. It's just that I wanted, even for once, make an author's note about historical references.

Also, I know Gilbert is tough. He's awesome. But still, he does have some weaknesses, too, and I imagine spiders could be one of those. xD

One more thing: this fic is starting to come to its end, so be aware of that. :3


	11. The Cursed Truth

_Author's note:_ Ahem. Now, after several obstacles, I'm finally back here with a new chapter. I'm sorry it took this long. And before you move on to the story, be warned that after this there will be two chapters more; we are nearing the end.

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter Ten:**_

_**The Cursed Truth**_

The sun had barely risen over horizon, only beginning to share its warmth, but the barn-yard was already filled with bustle. Neighing of horses, shouted commands of supervisory servants, scampering of sidekicks – the whole scene was sort of a chaos under control.

Arthur kept himself away from the centre of it. He stood in the shadows of an archway and leant his back against the stone wall, not registering the coldness of it as he watched the whole hassle on the yard with unseeing eyes. It was The Morning, it was almost time of Francis' departure, and yet he felt no sadness. He felt no anxiety. He felt nothing.

Romano and Gilbert were saddling horses – one for each of the three men – and fastening saddlebags and making sure that horseshoes were all properly fixed on the hooves. Antonio was talking with some supervisory servants, making sure that everything needed – provisions, tent, items for the hunt – was packed. Francis was the only one of the leaving trio who was nowhere to be seen.

Arthur didn't even note his absence. Not until someone tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to see the Frenchman himself behind him.

Francis looked splendid as always, even though he was wearing a simple tunic instead of his usual flamboyant silks. In fact, in his hunting attire – leather vest on the tunic, boots reaching his knee, sword on his hip – the Frenchman was more handsome than ever; he looked strong, reliable, royal. He looked glorious, but when Arthur turned and saw him, his heart didn't react in any way. His breath didn't hitch in his throat. He was numb inside out.

"Francis," he greeted the Frenchman monotonously, giving a curt nod. "Good morning."

"Good morning."

"You are all ready, I see."

The sky-blue eyes bored into his, but Arthur barely noticed saw Francis' lips moving, but registered no sounds._ Funny_, he thought, _it's like I were wrapped all over in finest veil brought from __the edge of the world_. He could see, but his vision was vague, and the sounds around him seemed mostly muted, coming from somewhere far. It was an interesting feeling, seeing someone talking to him but not hearing the voice...except Francis was no longer talking; his lips were still as he watched Arthur with a questioning expression. Whoops, maybe Arthur should crack his veil of that peculiarly funny isolation, otherwise he would look like a retard and that would not do for a prince!

"Sorry, did you just say something?" he asked the Frenchman, trying to suppress his sudden urge to laugh at the hilarity of the situation. "I didn't quite catch it, you see."

"Arthur, are you quite alright?" Oh dear, perhaps it was too late to pretend being attentive, because Francis was already giving him the sort of look that one gave when questioning someone's sanity. Arthur burst into laughter.

"Arthur?"

Why did Francis sound so crept out? Didn't he see the how funny it all was? Didn't he realise that he was a victim of situational irony, that they all were just game pieces in the hands of fate or faeries or some mad author, created for pure entertainment of others, dancing like puppets in master's strings to the music of a piper? It was hilarious, it truly was, why didn't Francis just _see_? Then Arthur realised that he had said those questions only in his own mind instead of voicing them for the Frenchman to hear, and doubled over with uncontrollable laughter. Dear God, he was going insane, now wasn't he?

And then suddenly his vision went all white with stars and he realised he was facing dirt instead of Francis. His left ear was ringing and for a moment he heard nothing beside that. His laughter had stopped as abruptly as it had began and he blinked once, twice. Only then did he register the burning pain on the left side of his head where the blow had got him.

"Oh Lord," he muttered, staring at the ground where he lay sprawled, horrified at himself.

A strong pair of arms grabbed him in the armpits and yanked him up on his own two feet, and Arthur found himself staring at the stern face of his father. "Son," the King said, quietly but firmly, locking Arthur's eyes with his own grey ones, and no other words were needed. King Lionheart held his son's shoulders, his grip sure and reassuring, and Arthur found himself calming down. He uttered not a word, but as his breathing became more even, he dared a quick glance at Francis. The Frenchman stood behind his father, eyebrows furrowed, and Arthur moved his eyes on the ground. What the hell had got into him?

Seeing that his son had regained his composure, the King let go of his shoulders and stepped back. Arthur dusted himself off, took a breath and looked at Francis, this time with enough courage to maintain the eye contact. "I'm sorry," he said. "I... I don't know what got into me."

"Well," Lionheart uttered loudly, cutting of any chances Francis could have had for responding, "now that my son seems to have quitted shaming himself in front of the whole bloody castle and regained all the little sense he has, I believe it safe for me to go and see the stables." The King took a few steps and stopped beside Arthur to tap him on the shoulder. "It's hard to sink to the level of a Frenchman, boy, but you were almost there." The the old King looked over his shoulder to frown at Francis. "_Almost_," he emphasised to make sure the Frenchman wouldn't commit the crime of thinking too highly of himself.

Arthur crooked a smile, knowing his father well enough not to dwell on his words. In spite of his dubious words, the old King meant well... mostly. "Glad to know there's always someone lower than I," he said as his father left for the stables. Arthur offered Francis a hesitant, slightly apologetic smile (whether for his or his father's behaviour, he wasn't quite sure), waiting for the Frenchman to react in some way.

Francis gave him an odd smile. "Well, soon enough you won't have even that."

"False. You'll remain lower than I, regardless of your whereabouts, idiot."

"Fine," Francis said, and this time his smile was a friendly one. "I'll give you that."

Arthur got no pleasure of his victory.

"Well." Francis scratched his head. "I should go check my horse at the stables."

Arthur could have told him that his horse was not at the stables but closer to the gate already, yet he didn't. If Francis had taken so much time to look so bloody stunning, he could blame only himself for not knowing what had been happening at the barn-yard while he was dressing. Stupid frog. Then he remembered that his father was at the stables too, and smiled with dark mischief; King Lionheart would always find an excuse to tell off Francis. Served him right.

Now that he was alone again, Arthur resumed his previous post at the wall; it was better to watch the bustle on the yard than let himself a chance to think. Thinking was overestimated in any case – ignorance was way easier.

Neither Gilbert nor Antonio were anywhere in sight, and Arthur vaguely remembered that he hadn't had a chance to bid them farewell, and now it was too late... unless he got a moment with them hidden from other people's gazes. On the other hand, maybe it was for the best – what would Arthur say, anyway? Hi, it was fun as long as it lasted, it was nice to know you, now would you be so kind and fuck off already to get it over and done with. And by the way, did I mention that you are probably the only real friends I've ever had? _Pathetic._ Even more so, because the instant the "Bad Touch Trio" left the gates of London behind their backs, they would find new people to befriend and fall in love with. Unlike Arthur, who would continue playing a prince, unable to leave anything behind.

Then Arthur thought of Romano. If Francis was to be trusted, his stableman had formed a special bond with Gilbert. Now it would be broken, too. But then again, if Gilbert had no problems with leaving Romano behind, could it have been anything so special? Just as since Francis was leaving _Arthur_ behind, he couldn't have been anything special to the Frenchman.

So much for his resolution not to think.

"Hello? Are you daydreaming or what?"

Arthur blinked as the voice cut through his dark musings. Gilbert and Antonio stood before him, in the shadow of the archway. Speak of the devil... "Huh?" was the Englishman's response to whatever they had said.

Gilbert pushed him further into the shadows, to hide them from any curious eyes. Antonio followed him, and Arthur noted that he wore a solemn expression for once.

"So," Gilbert said, giving a lopsided, somehow helpless smile. "What now?"

Arthur knew perfectly well what he was taking about. "What do you mean?"

The Prussian's funny smile faded away in a second. "Quit that shit, you know perfectly well what I mean."

"Francis hasn't kissed you yet," Antonio clarified helpfully, as if that particular piece of information was a _surprise_ to Arthur. "What will happen when we leave?"

"How should I know?" Arthur snapped sullenly. "Maybe the curse will find a new frog for me to marry, or maybe some queer chance will bring you back. I personally believe it's the former one, but don't worry – even if you were forced to return, you can always go and die again after the bloody wedding." _Is this how you want to bid farewell to your friends, Arthur?_

"Whoa, hold your horses!" Gilbert retorted, raising his hands up in a surrendering gesture. "No need to freak out."

"Nice to hear you say that, after this morning's fit you threw," Antonio said calmly yet the tiniest bit sarcastically. Arthur hadn't even imagined Antonio being capable of any sort of sarcasm.

"Okay, well, we'll see how it goes," Gilbert muttered awkwardly. "Anyhow," he spoke to Arthur, "we'll send back one of the horses, or maybe two. We might have to, well, uh, make them look like there had been a fight or something, so... you know."

"As long as you don't truly harm them," Arthur said flatly. It looked like Gilbert was going to continue, but a servant interrupted them then to tell that everything was ready. _So, _Arthur thought as they walked to the gate where the horses were waiting, _nice way of ruining the very last chance for final goodbyes_.

Francis was already there, thoughtfully patting his white mare named Desdemona. Arthur wanted to turn around and run away and end the whole damn farce, but he forced himself to stay and act out the last few moments of the play. He halted a few feet from Francis and gave him a small smile. "Well," he said, "I suppose this is it."

"I suppose it is," Francis agreed, looking at Arthur with an unreadable expression.

_No, this can't be it, not yet, not like this_. Gilbert and Antonio both mounted their horses, and everybody was now waiting for Francis to follow their example and go. Arthur felt his palms sweating. He had to do something, say something, he had to, had to... it couldn't be the end! Shuddering, Arthur was starting to feel like he had earlier in the morning before his moment of madness, and tried to take a hold of himself. _Easy now, remember what Gilbert said, don't freak out, just don't freak out now, say something, do something_... But what? He couldn't stop Francis from leaving. He couldn't ask him to stay...

"I," Arthur started, managing to close his inner storm out of his voice and act almost normal, "I think I might miss you." He grinned the best he could. "A bit. If you are lucky."

"I'm always lucky, I'm Lady Fortune's favourite, remember?" Francis said with a wink, and that seemed to scatter Arthur's sanity, because the Prince found himself stepping forward almost unconsciously. _If Francis will never do it, I might as well. He's leaving for ever, after all, so I can as well_...

But Arthur never got the chance to finish even his train of thought, because right then Francis went and pulled himself on his horse, leaving Arthur standing small below him, small and cold and alone, unable to reach up to him.

"Francis," Antonio said quietly, and Arthur realised the guards at the gate were giving them odd glances. Not that he cared. The failure of this one last chance he might have had to achieve something, to leave Francis a memory of himself, made him drop all his masks, leaving only a blank face to blink up at the Frenchman sitting high in his saddle. He was like a knight on his white horse, gorgeous, sunlight dancing in his golden hair, straight out of any faery tale. Any other but Arthur's.

Francis looked down at him with a sad smile. "I guess it's time for goodbye, then," he said.

"Goodbye." The word came out as a mere whisper, but it was all Arthur could muster.

And then, graciously as ever, Francis leant down in his saddle, touched Arthur's cheek with his fingers and planted a small, gentle kiss on his lips. It was chaste, light, and brief as wing beat of butterfly, but undeniably a kiss of Francis' own free will, without any knowledge of the curse upon Arthur or pressure from others. "_Au revoir, Arthur._" With that, before Arthur could even start to comprehend what had just happened, Francis straightened again and without sparing Arthur so much as a single glance, pressed his heels in his mare's sides and galloped out of the gates, leaving it upon his friends to follow.

Gilbert and Antonio exchanged a shocked look, mouths hanging open and disbelief evident in their eyes. Then they turned to Arthur in union, but the Englishman didn't meet their gazes. He was busy staring at Francis' retreating back, with a memory of warm lips on his own and nothing else. Soon two other retreating backs joined to Francis', and the Bad Touch Trio rode together away from him and into the freedom.

"There they go," Arthur heard his father's voice behind him. "Too bad it's only for a couple of days."

Arthur didn't say anything. The old King turned to look at him.

"It's only for a couple of days, Arthur," he repeated. "No need to sulk like that."

_You are wrong_, Arthur thought.

"What's with that face, I told you to stop sulking! If you're afraid he'll just leave, don't worry; I had a talk with him at the stables."

It was somehow so ironical, so deliciously ironical that Arthur felt he held a thunderstorm within himself. His father was _wrong, _regardless of how Francis had managed to convince him otherwise. Francis was _leaving,_ for ever, and worst of all, he was doing so with Arthur's own assistance. But that wasn't something he could tell his father, so he settled for the second best option.

"Would you just shut up now?" he snapped. "All this talk of Francis annoys the hell out of me!"

The King smacked the back of Arthur's head. "How many times do I have to repeat that that's not a way to talk to others! Clean your shitty mouth and try again!"

Arthur couldn't find it in himself to continue the argument – he felt far too weary for quarrelling with his father. "Whatever," he muttered, watching how the guards were closing the gate. His effortlessness, however, seemed to startle the old King.

"Arthur, son. What the hell is your problem?"

"The problem is you! If you hadn't decided to amuse yourself by playing with my life, this whole marriage issue with Francis would never have happened!"

"If you had shown courtesy to that frog all those years ago, it wouldn't be a Frenchman you are to marry, so blame yourself."

Arthur groaned. "Father, the problem is not his freaking _nationality_!"

"Then what is?" the King demanded. "Are you so fucking ratty because he left or because you love him?"

"Both, but more because he-" Arthur caught himself in time to prevent telling his father that Francis truly _wouldn't_ return, and then he realised what he had just confessed. "I'm _not_ in love with him, how many times do _I_ have to repeat that? It was just... just..." It was just the curse that had made him feel like that. But now the curse was gone, Francis had kissed him, so why on earth was the ache inside him even greater than before?

Finding himself tangled in his own words, Arthur shut his mouth firmly, this time determined to maintain his sulking silence. The King sighed. "Stop acting like a spoiled child, Arthur. Be a man and get over it."

God knew that spoiling a child with King Lionheart's raising methods was just as possible as pleasing peasants by raising taxes, so Arthur, being very mature, ignored his father's undignified comment.

"He's a swineherd," he blurted out instead, out of sheer spite. Let his father burn in agony a bit before he realises Francis won't return. But alas, King Lionheart left him without even that small satisfaction. "A _French_ swineherd, unfortunately. I had hoped you would have been found by a proper poor English peasant. But that's only wistful thinking at this point and better be forgotten."

Arthur, finally completely muted, turned his back to his father, to Francis and to the gates that would close the Frenchman out of his life for ever, and left for the safety of his chamber.

xXx

Arthur was known for his incredible ability to hide his true feelings and thoughts when he set his mind to it, but now every step the Englishman took toward his room added a new crack to his crumbling composure. He feared he would explode at any moment, and that would be no good in sight of the servants, so he'd better reach his chambers soon; this time he couldn't keep it all inside himself.

As soon as he was safely within his walls, Arthur slammed his door shut so hard the stone seemed to shake, and kicked it once for a good measure. That, however, didn't make him feel any better, so he kicked it again, but the action still stubbornly lacked the desired effect. Arthur whirled around and marched to the object nearest to him, which happened to be a shelf with wooden figures, candlesticks and ornamental boxes.

The first thing to break was a small, wooden box with beautiful carvings. Arthur had hurled it down on the floor in desperate, blind wave of something he couldn't, nor cared to name. All he knew was that the sound of wood splintering against stone was relieving, and it was satisfactory to feel the power of breaking in his muscles. Blindly he reached for the next item.

_He kissed me!_

Break!

_He kissed me, so why isn't it gone?_

Break!

_Why do I still..?_

_BREAK!_

"Whoops, there went the mirror. Sadly; I've always rather liked it."

Arthur froze, vaguely familiar voice breaking through his foggy mind. Wildly he whirled around, but saw no one in his room but himself. Great. Now he was imagining things.

Something small and rather green shifted in the corner of his eye, and he looked to his bed – to see an all too familiar, cursed frog on it.

"Croak!" it greeted him smugly.

"You," Arthur whispered, shocked, but then found himself again. "_You!_" he yelled. "You! You fucking treacherous, wicked thing! What have you _done_?"

The frog looked at him innocently, tilting its head to one side. "What might you mean, Arthur?"

"He kissed me!" Arthur cried out, pleadingly and angrily at the same time. "He fucking kissed me of his own bloody will so why the hell isn't this curse gone? Why _isn't_ it?"

The frog shook its head pityingly. "It is gone," it answered. "It's not _my_ fault you are too much of a coward to admit the truth to yourself."

Its words didn't reach Arthur, not truly. "Take it away," he pleaded hoarsely. "Take the curse fully away, with all its side effects... please!"

"You really are as stubborn as your father so often says," the frog muttered grimly. "Listen, Arthur. Falling in love was never part of the curse... you managed it all by yourself!"

Arthur didn't reply, only stared numbly, so the frog continued. "Let me congratulate you," it said, grinning. "The curse is gone... Too bad that _he_ is gone too!" And then it burst into croaking, cruel froggy laughter. "_Now_ I believe that you have learnt your lesson, Arthur. Don't forget it."

With those final words, the frog, as was its habit, disappeared – and this time most likely for good. Arthur was left alone in his chambers among the things he had broken.

_The things he had broken._

xXx

That evening King Lionheart found his son curled up in a ball, clutching his own face and shaking all over, surrounded with broken glass and wood.

Had there been any witnesses that night, Lionheart's reputation as an... eccentric father would have been forced to be dramatically rethought. But as nobody happened to wander into Arthur's chambers, no rumours of the old King's soft side could spread to ruin the image his people had of him.

xXx

It wasn't before nightfall when Gilbert and Antonio decided to tell him.

The ride had been rather quiet after they took off. No one was truly in the mood of an adventure, even though in the beginning they all had tried to maintain the fake image of excitement of hitting the road again. It hadn't worked, so they had soon fallen into silence, each having their own regrets. Francis, no doubt, was thinking of Arthur; Gilbert's mind was surely on Romano... and Antonio himself, well, aside his friends' grief he was slightly sad that he hadn't made anything concrete about that pretty girl named Bella that he had glimpsed in the castle several times.

Once Antonio had tried to talk to his friends about what they really wanted – seeing them so miserable saddened the Spaniard – but that had been of little avail.

"You shouldn't leave Arthur if you love him," he had told Francis, but the Frenchman had merely snorted and kept riding. "I do not intend to stay where my presence is not desired," he had answered coldly.

Antonio had tried to comfort Gilbert as well. "You at least know that your interest in one another is mutual, you could have stayed," he had pointed out to the Prussian, because unlike Francis, Gilbert was fully certain that Romano could not be _not_ interested in such an awesome guy (as Gilbert himself had put it). But the Prussian had kept staring grimly straight in front of him and replied, "It's not awesome to leave your friends behind."

"It's not awesome to leave your lovers behind, either," the Spaniard had said quietly, which had earned him two murderous glares.

After that he had given up trying to cheer up the mood.

But when the night came and the three men sat around a small camp fire and Francis had bitterly wondered aloud about the mixed messages Arthur had sent him, Antonio and Gilbert shared a solemn look. Francis had a right to know what had been happening behind his back, and even if that knowledge would not please him, best friends kept no such secrets from one another.

"Hey, Franny," Gilbert started uncharacteristically carefully, "Uh, there is something you should know..."

Francis uttered not a single sound as the whole story was revealed to him.

X

_Addition to author's note: _ Bella is Belgium. I'm not well acquainted with Spain-pairings, but I have seen him with Belgium in a fic or two, and a quick research in the Internet revealed me that Spain/Belgium is relatively common a pairing. That's why Antonio's implied object of interest is her.


	12. The Other Side of the Story

_Author's note_: It's a bit silly, but I didn't (and still don't) know whether the last part of Antonio's name (Fernández Carriedo) is his family name, or if Fernández is his second name and Carriedo his family name. Thus I've used the whole Fernández Carriedo as his family name.

So, one more chapter left! Finally; even though I'm fond of this story, the feeling of accomplishment is sweet when a story is (hopefully) successfully finished. And besides, I have many new ideas that need my full attention. ;)

I guess what I really wanted to say now is a huge, massive thank you to all of you, who read/favourited/etc. this fic, and a special thanks to those who bothered to leave a review! Your patience with my slow updates is admirable, truly. (Not that there is much you could do even if you had no patience at all.) Hopefully the ending of this faery tale will please you. :3

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter Eleven:**_

_**The Other Side of the Story**_

Francis Bonnefoy did not come from a noble family; despite him being a fluent liar he had told Arthur the truth in that.

Regardless of his low birth, however, Francis had never truly felt poor or unhappy about what he had, especially not after meeting the two people who had perhaps had a greater affect on his life than anyone else, ever. Gilbert and Antonio and he himself had formed an unbreakable trio, and together they had had – and would yet have – the time of their lives. They were young and wild and free – every day was a new adventure to them.

First they had wandered around France, then travelled to Spain, where Antonio had taken them to his family's house. The estate of the family Fernández Carriedo was not very big, nor was it particularly splendid, but it was a beautiful house nontheless, and Antonio's family had been warm and kind. They owned a large tomato field, and such was Antonio's love for it that the trio had spent three weeks in the house whereas they had meant to stay only one; it had been the time for harvest.

"When collecting the harvest there are never too many helping hands," Antonio had told them rather sheepishly. "Now that I'm here, it really would be rude not to help my own parents." Francis and Gilbert had laughed at the obviousness of their friend, and they had helped with tomatoes too. "Since we are that awesome," Gilbert had explained contentedly with a basket full of ripe, beautifully reddened tomatoes.

After the harvest had been cared for the trio had set off on the road again. Antonio's parents, cheerful and easygoing as they were, had no objections to their son's desire to see the world; they were conviced he would eventually return and take his place as the head of the family when the time came. Antonio himself wasn't quite as sure as his parents, but he kept his thoughts to himself; why trouble himself with something that wasn't even of current interest yet? Time would surely show what was to come, so Antonio kept living his life day by day without worrying about the future.

After Spain Antonio and Francis had suggested Gilbert to show them his country and family, but the Prussian had been somewhat reluctant. Eventually he had told them why: there had been some family issues. The thing was that Gilbert, the elder son, had left to serve in the military, so his father, upset by his first-born's decision, had given the right to their farm and all its property to the second son, Ludwig. But then Gilbert had returned.

A lot might be said about Gilbert Beilschmidt, but no one could claim he didn't love his little brother. Gilbert hadn't demanded what should have been his by birthright, but his father's mind had softened and he had given half of the property to his eldest son. Their father had died soon after that, and after a while Gilbert had realised how problematic it was to have the farm divided between two. Thus one day he had made up his mind, gone to his brother and granted his half of property to him. Ludwig had opposed his proposal, at first, but Gilbert had assured him that he was totally fine with it, and after some time, Ludwig had agreed. He was not stupid, Gilbert's little brother; he was aware that it was for the best of the farm. Shortly after that, Gilbert had left. "I'm not made for sticking to one spot," he had claimed, and the brothers had separated in friendly spirits.

Gilbert had visited Ludwig every once in a while, but it had always become somewhat awkward; Ludwig kept worrying that his brother didn't have a place whereto settle down, and Gilbert kept assuring that he was fine and content, even though deep down he felt that Ludwig's musings had a shade of truth to them. And so it happened that despite their brotherly love and respect to one another, they both always ended up feeling uneasy in each other's company.

"I won't return there any more if I can help it," Gilbert had told his two friends, "Not until I have something to reassure my brother with. He is such a worrier, that one."

Regardless of Gilbert's resolution, he had taken them to his brother's farm once, and after that they had travelled wherever they set their eyes upon. In some places they had stayed a while longer, in others only briefly, and not a trip happened without some kind of obstacles or adventures.

The result of their latest adventure – or an obstacle? – was painfully plainly in view: three men riding on, hunched in their saddles with heavy hearts. Francis thought it was pathetic.

And yet, despite all the misery it had cast, he couldn't help but think that it could have been the greatest adventure they would ever experience. If it hadn't ended as abruptly as it had begun, that is.

As silly as it was, Francis could recall the beginning of their if not greatest, then at least the most unexpected adventure as clearly as if it had only now just happened. Weirdest of things had stumbled upon them from bushes, anything from mean trolls to even meaner children, but never had they expected to meet in forest a _prince,_ of all possible creatures. Princes belonged to their castles, not into the real world – the world Francis and his friends were living in.

Yet expected or not, there Arthur had stood, right before them. Frankly speaking, no one could have blamed the trio for not realising who the young man was; he had looked miserable with his wet and dirty clothes, messy hair and black circles around his eyes. (Francis had judged from his bushy eyebrows that the man had been wandering in woods for weeks, but, as it later appeared, he had been wrong about that.) The funny man had spoken funny words about unicorns and such, and possessed a terrible temper too, but kind-hearted as the trio was, they had offered to escort him back to his home town. Little had they known then... oh, how little!

Francis hadn't particularly liked Arthur then. Sure, it had been amusing to vex him, easy as it was, but Arthur's personality had appeared annoying on the long run and he wasn't even attractive enough to make amends for his bad temper. Thus, when those knights had caught them on the road on that day a million years ago, Francis had believed it was all a terrible nightmare. Then he had met King Lionheart and realised that no nightmare could be so unbearable and that it was all real, and, worst of all, he was alone in the castle without his familiar pack.

Thankfully Arthur had proved to be just as reluctant to wed as Francis, and the thought of an escape plan had made the Frenchman calm down and ease up a bit. When even his friends had made their appearance in the castle, Francis had felt that maybe, just maybe, he might actually take some enjoyment of the surreal situation.

After that things had started to roll on rather nicely, he had to admit. After the first shock was gone even Arthur had seemed to become slightly less infuriating. Or, for a more accurate wording, Francis had started to realise that the Englishman wasn't truly _quite_ so sullen and angry all the time, even though he always appeared so. The moments when Francis had seen glimpses of what he suspected was the _real_ Arthur were those when the Englishman had thought he was alone – walking in the garden, trying to pet wild rabbits, reading books. In those moments the frown on his face had melted away and he had looked being at ease with himself and his surroundings.

After the fiasco at their engagement celebration when Arthur had shown Francis his secret creek and apologised, the Frenchman had grown truly curious about his fiancé's true colours. He had seen enough to suspect that under that armour of restrained lived a different Arthur, a shy yet lively and mischievous, intelligent and interesting Arthur. Arthur that smiled.

Funnily enough, the more time Francis had started to spent with the Prince, the more often he had begun to see behind that armour, see that rare smile. Fencing lessons they took together had revealed a wild, physically fit Arthur; lessons on literature and history had revealed a smart and curious Arthur; etiquette lessons had revealed a socially challenged Arthur, yet in most charming of ways; and their rides or walks together had revealed many kinds of Arthurs, from laughing Arthur to a silent or deliciously flustered Arthur. Slowly slowly, step by step, Arthur had become something enchanting, and his smiles had become something very precious to Francis. It hadn't been until the night when Arthur had cooked for him (and vice versa), when Francis had realised that something was not right about the way he felt around that charming little Englishman. And then had come the moment when Francis realised, startled, that he really, _really_ wanted to kiss Arthur. The realisation had been so sudden that Francis had _not_ kissed him; call it a shock if you will.

But there had appeared a difficulty: the odd messages Arthur kept sending him. One moment he had seemed to invite the Frenchman to do what lovers did, the next moment he had looked angry at him and completely withdrawn. Go figure which was the best way to act with such a difficult little brat.

The second difficulty, however, was much more tricky: Francis had never been in a committed relationship before, not even properly in love after turning sixteen. He had had his first and purest love when he had been around fourteen, but two years later the prestige that had killed his parents had taken her away, too, and after Jeanne's death he hadn't had anyone that special. Besides, it had turned impossible to developed special bonds with anyone due to the travelling lifestyle of his friends and him; they were all young and free, no one had wanted to settle down just yet. Occasional (and not so rare) chances to have some non-committed fun had always been the right way for them.

And yet Francis had started to feel that he didn't want it to be like that with Arthur. He didn't want to have him just once or twice and then leave it all behind. No, he wanted Arthur with not only his bed, but with his terrible temper, weird unicorn-hallucinations and, God save him, even with the freaky eyebrows too. He wanted Arthur _whole_, and dear Lord how this had _scared_ him!

And then there were the words King Lionheart had said him at the stables that day...

But none of it mattered any longer. None of it mattered, because when night fell upon them on their departure day Francis learned from his friends what a treacherous, feigning and selfish little bastard Arthur turned out to truly be. Oh yes, he _had_ been absolutely willing to be kissed by Francis, but only because he was burning to get rid of him. How very flattering a thought (note the sarcasm, _s'il vous plaît_), yet however unpleasant the truth was, there was no sense in denying it: Arthur had only used him to rid himself of his curse (which, frankly speaking, he had fully deserved).

Now, Francis Bonnefoy did not come from a noble family... but in spite of that he had a pride of a man who knew himself as noble as any highborn. And when that pride had been dishonoured, his burning rage was something any fierce warrior would be proud to possess.

But beneath that pride, beneath that fury, Francis Bonnefoy had a beating heart that was just as vulnerable as any other.

X


	13. Finale

_Author's note:_ ...If I still have any readers left, I'll just make a plain and quiet apology to you. Instead of making any excuses, I'll just say that life (and lifelessness) happened, hence the terribly long gap between updates. I'm sincerely sorry.

Without further ado, let us just go straight to the grande finale. Thank you so much for (possibly) baring with me till the end, I hope you enjoyed this story despite everything! :)

No, wait! One more thing to say. You guys know the new animation The Rise of Guardians? I saw the trailer, and damn me if the Frost guy (Jack the Frost or what's his name?) isn't a shocking likeness of Gilbert! He resembles him both by looks and nature (though he has blue eyes), and I believe I've fallen in love with him. XD I seriously need to see that film.

So that's that. Now on to the story!

**Prince's Hand And Half of the Kingdom**

_**Chapter Twelve:**_

_**Finale**_

With Francis gone, life in the castle wasn't quite the same any more. Somehow the absence of the Frenchman made him even more _present_ in the young Prince's mind, which didn't really make any sense at all and thus shouldn't be bothering Arthur.

Needless to say, it bothered him nonetheless.

Stupid comments of stupid servants made it all so much worse that Arthur thought he would snap at any second now. "When m'lord Francis is back he won't even recognise the castle any more," some simple-minded girl decorating the ballroom would say. "When m'lord Francis is back he might say his opinion about the onion pie I'm going to make for the wedding," some dough-brained cook would tell proudly. It all made Arthur sick; when my fucking lord Francis was back he would do this and see that and blah blah bloody _blah_. Arthur wanted to scream at them, shout from the top of his lungs that Francis _wasn't coming back_ so would they be so kind and get _over_ it and _let him be_, because the constant reminders about the stupid Frenchman were driving him crazy. It was incredibly frustrating to find that even when Francis himself was gone, his ghost kept tormenting Arthur in every corner of the castle.

His irritability didn't go unnoticed by his father, but the good King Lionheart did not comment on it. He would only glance at his son every now and then, furrow his brows and sometimes shake his head barely noticeably – but he would not utter a word. If truth be told, the King was somewhat at loss with his son's apparent misery; he could not understand – and refused to believe – that Arthur would get so upset only because his fiancé was out for a couple of days. Yet the lad idled around the castle forlornly or moped in his chambers, looking overall ready to butcher anyone who dared disturb his splendid sulking. Arthur's behaviour didn't make very much sense to Lionheart, so all there was left for the King to suspect was that Arthur and Francis had probably fought before the Frenchman's departure and the fight had been even nastier than usually.

Oh well, King Lionheart thought, as soon as Francis was back, the two lovebirds would undoubtedly make up and Arthur would be back to normal again, and the two of them would get married. And then...

And then it would be about time for the King to step aside and let the young make their own path. Arthur would soon be ready to carry the burden of the crown, whether the lad himself was aware of it or not, and now that Arthur had finally found someone trustworthy to stand by his side, King Lionheart was able to put his mind to rest. Whatever happened in the future, his son would not have to face it alone.

Of course, had Arthur known of his father's musings, he would have been eager to ruin them by telling that Francis was not coming back, not now not ever, so the King would have to trouble his mind some more. But as the Prince was oblivious to such thoughts, the King was allowed to keep his peace. The same couldn't be said about his son, and as Arthur found that he couldn't find any solace within the castle walls, he would have to try to find it elsewhere.

There were only two places that Arthur could think of where no one would remind him of a certain someone, and those were, first, the stable area where Romano ruled; the grumpy Italian had (wisely) never taken any liking in the Frenchman. On the other hand, he had apparently fallen for that same Frenchman's even more obnoxious friend, so maybe he wasn't all that wise in the end. However, the second Francis-less place was Arthur's peaceful creek outside the town walls, and that was where he now intended to ride.

"Macbeth?" Romano asked when he saw Arthur entering the stables.

"Macbeth."

Arthur watched Romano as the man started to saddle the horse for him. He had never spared a thought to Romano's private life before, but now, when they were in sort of the same situation, he couldn't help wondering how Romano would react when Gilbert was announced dead or missing. Arthur hadn't even suspected that there would be any kind of attraction between the two stablemen, but when Francis had pointed it out, he figured it made sense, in a way.

"The hell are you staring at."

The Italian's angry voice snapped Arthur out of his thoughts, and he realised he indeed had been staring at Romano. "Nothing that concerns you," he lied, took the horse and rode off.

The evening breeze sent chills running down Arthur's spine as his mare galloped through the woods towards the Englishman's secret hiding place. The creek with its surrounding quiet trees and slowly flowing water had never failed to fill him with peace, and now he needed that peace more than ever. Francis had been away one night and almost two days already, and Arthur awaited the second night with dread; if it was anything like the first night, it promised him no sleep, only torturing thoughts or restless slumber filled with messy visions. He hoped that visiting his sacred shrine of peace would soothe him enough to keep the nightmares away and maybe even grant him if not peace, then at least insensibility to end the pain in his chest.

However, it appeared that at the moment of truth, when Arthur was in the most desperate need of solace, the creek betrayed him. It was not peace he found there, but a living memory of how he had brought Francis there and, by the way, managed to make an utter fool of himself. The memory forced an unwilling, small chuckle out of the Prince, but it left a bitter taste in his mouth so he pressed his lips together and decided to stay quiet.

Arthur did remain quiet for several whole minutes, but then he lay on his stomach, leaning over the riverbank, and saw his own reflection in the water. The reflection had an unimpressed, slightly blaming expression on its face, so the Englishman started to feel an urge to explain to it. "He's been gone for two days now," he started tentatively. When the reflection's expression remained the same, Arthur continued. "Francis, I mean. He has left never to return. As we agreed. As we had wanted."

He paused. Maybe it was just water doing tricks on him, but the reflection seemed to raise its eyebrow. "We _had_ wanted," Arthur answered to it defensively. "We had. But... I just, I don't think that I want it any more."

_Oh, really?_ the reflection seemed to utter sarcastically, with its eyes.

"Fine, I _don't_ want it any more!" Arthur snapped at it. Then he sighed. "I wish he would have stayed. I, I wish I could have asked him to."

_Why didn't you?_ Asked the reflection, as if it would have been that easy.

"It's complicated," Arthur said quietly, thinking of the curse and Francis' freedom-longing heart and his own insecurity. The reflection rolled its eyes, and Arthur got angry at it. "Don't you judge me, fucking smartass!" he yelled, ripping out a handful of grass and throwing it at his face-making reflection in fury. The action lacked the desired dramatic effect as pieces of grass floated unhurriedly in the air before softly landing on the surface of water, peacefully flowing away with the stream. Arthur watched them go.

"This isn't easy," he explained wearily to his reflection. "This is new to me. To feel like this."

_How exactly?_ the reflection wanted to know.

"What a nosy thing you are," Arthur snorted. "It's none of your business. Besides..." He hesitated. "I'm not quite sure myself. Like I said, I haven't been in love before, so I can't-"

He froze. The reflection smirked at him.

"Shut up!" Arthur exclaimed, splashing the water with his hand. A wave of hot tingling washed over him, and he didn't need to see his own reflection to know that he was blushing madly. What on earth had he just said? Love? _In_ love? _He_, in love with _Francis_? Wasn't that _slightly_ exaggerated a statement? But when Arthur thought about Francis and his never-return, he got a feeling that no, it wasn't exaggeration. And it wasn't a side effect, either, like he had thought (or made himself think). It truly must have been – God save him – love.

_You are such a coward,_ said the reflection._ You knew all along but were too afraid to admit it even to yourself_.

"No," Arthur protested weakly, but he knew it was no use. Besides, it didn't matter what the truth was, because it was probably already established bloody well enough that Francis Bonnefoy was _gone._

Not liking the stupid expression of his reflection, Arthur withdrew from the river and sat down against a tree. He didn't feel one bit better despite the peace around him, so he sulkily wrapped himself in his misery, determined to forget the stupid Frenchman... after just a little more self-pity.

How long Arthur remained at the creek he did not know, but when he finally decided it was time to head back to the castle, sun had already set and it was almost dark. The air had turned chilly, too. Wrapping his cloak better around himself and setting back to the castle, Arthur wondered how time had passed without him even noticing. _Good thing that father still believes I'm marrying Francis_, the Englishman thought with grim amusement. _Otherwise he would have made another announcement about my hand already_. The thought was actually somewhat alarming; now that Arthur had seen what stupid ideas his father could get, it was best not to be absent from the castle for too long from now on. Otherwise, who knew, one day Arthur might find himself engaged with another random passer-by. Though, probably even King Lionheart had learnt from his mistake – the King would hardly risk getting any other Frenchies in his castle.

The town was preparing for the night when Arthur returned; hardly any people could be seen on the streets. The same applied for the castle area – only the guards on duty walked their paths. Arthur hoped sincerely that Romano was already sleeping, too, because if he wasn't, he was going to give Arthur a hell of a lecture about not returning the horse earlier. It would have been adorable how deeply the Italian cared for the animals, had he not abused people instead.

Thankfully, when Arthur entered the stables (as quietly as he could, not to wake Romano up in case he was sleeping), indeed, the Italian was nowhere to be seen. Arthur lit a lantern and unsaddled Macbeth, watered her and brushed her sides, and when he was ready, made sure to put out the flame in the lantern; he didn't want to burn the stables down, Romano would skin him for that.

But Arthur didn't make it to the door of the stables. He heard some faint shuffling, but before he could react in any way, rough arms grabbed him and slammed him against a stall with so much force that the walls shook.

"What the-" Arthur started, but was cut off. A hand snaked around his throat, but that wasn't enough to silence a man like Arthur. What made him swallow his words instead was the voice that spoke.

"Quiet," that voice commanded, and at that moment Arthur forgot how to talk.

Because curse him (again) if there was any other voice with that particular French accent as Francis'.

"F-Francis?" he stammered, and the hand on his throat twitched. It was too dark to see any facial features, but Arthur was sure he could distinguish specifically _Francis'_ form, no one other's, and recognise his scent. It was Francis, it had to be.

That, or then the evil frog was playing its tricks on him again.

"Quiet, I said," Francis – now Arthur was absolutely certain it was him – repeated his command. A sudden wave of illegally overwhelming joy washed over the Englishman, paralysing him momentarily. There was a moment of stillness in the dark stable, only two men breathing slightly louder than usually. During that moment, when neither of them did or said anything, confusion followed the joy, and so Arthur was the first to break the silence.

"Francis," he breathed, scared to speak too loudly, in fear it might make Francis disappear. "Why are you here?"

"Oh?" The Frenchman seemed to hold his breath for half a moment, but then again, it might have been Arthur's imagination. "Don't you want me to be, my dearest betrothed?"

The rush of happiness that had filled Arthur mere moments ago now died as suddenly as it had appeared. The Englishman stared at Francis in dismay – his eyes had got used to the dark so now he could actually see his frame, if not the face completely. But what the hell was that? Arthur had practically _felt_ ice dropping off every word that had left Francis' lips. Only then did he also realise that slamming somebody against a wall and grabbing their throat wasn't too nice a way to greet a person, especially if that person happened to be their fiancé. An unwilling fiancé perhaps, but a fiancé nonetheless.

Arthur felt a sting of hurt in his chest but refused to acknowledge it, and gave way to rising anger instead. Anger was always easier that hurt. Anger was the best attack and the best defence. And anger was always better than confusion.

"What the hell, Francis?" he demanded, swatting the Frenchman's hand away from his throat.

"That is precisely my question, Arthur dear," Francis hissed back. "I don't know what you think of me, but I do not take it lightly to be treated like scum."

"Scum?" Arthur blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"You know very well what I'm talking about, Arthur. You you can't even begin to imagine how my hands are itching to strangle you right here and now, or better even, drive a sword through your heart to give you a taste of what you put me through."

_What?_ Shocked, Arthur stared at Francis. Never before had he heard such venom in the Frenchman's voice, never such pure, raw _malice,_ and it made him falter. "Are you mad?"

Francis uttered a bitter laughter. "Perhaps I truly am, for not seeing what a treacherous little thing you truly are."

"Then what did you come here for?" Arthur exploded in frustration, having had enough. He didn't understand. Why the hell did Francis bother returning just to tell him how much he hated him, if he could be leagues away already? The man made no sense at all.

Arthur's question, however, seemed to have hit the bull's eye; Francis visibly hesitated, as if not even himself knowing the answer. "I..." Then he got a grip on himself. "I want you to admit everything yourself, and then I'll be gone for good."

"What the bloody hell is it you want me to admit?"

Arthur's angrily yelled question did not seem to please the Frenchman. For a moment Arthur was sure that he would hit him, or crash his head against the wall, or something equally brutal, but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, Francis forced himself to calm, and when he spoke, his voice was piercingly cold. "You despicable tease," he growled. "Do you deny that the whole time I spent in the castle you were trying to worm into my heart and make me kiss you, all just in order to get rid of me?"

Ah.

Well. Arthur couldn't really deny that.

"Do you deny it?" Francis repeated.

"No," Arthur said, weakly. Once again, Francis had unarmed him. But to what purpose? Was he really that angry because he had been used, in a way, to rid Arthur of his curse? Was there reason enough to return all the way to the castle, just to hear Arthur admitting it? Maybe there was, then. Pride could make men act insensibly. Arthur, of all, should know that.

"Oh." Surprisingly, the Frenchman's rage seemed to desert him at that. Silence between them turned awkward, as if neither knew what to do next, and truth be told, neither of them actually did.

Macbeth whinnied in her stall.

"Well," said Francis at last. "I don't know if I should thank you for answering honestly to my face, or despise your insolence for doing so."

"My insolence? Then how about you try to decide what you want before coming here and making demands on me, fucking frogface?"

"I guess I had hoped you wouldn't have turned out to be the scheming bastard you are after all." Francis turned away, as if to leave.

Arthur couldn't stand it any longer. It was late, he had a tiring day behind him, and his poor heart was tumbling in his chest like crazy.

"Can you really blame me for that?" he shouted in exasperation. (If Romano had truly been sleeping, it was only a matter of time before he rushed into the stables to make an end of Arthur and Francis both.) "I don't want to be with you because of some fucking curse, you sodding git, but because- because- Look, I'm bloody _sorry_ to have used you, but I'd better have it like this than keep you here by force, so, so you should have fucking _thanked_ me for letting you go!"

Francis halted and turned around. _To hell with it_, Arthur thought, filled with odd defiance. _I will never see him again after this __anyway__, there's nothing to lose_. Of course Francis might go bragging in every part of the world that he had managed to make the Prince of England fall for him, but no one would believe him anyway. "That's right," he said aloud, somehow oddly content to be the moral winner of the situation, if nothing else. "So before you make a sodding victim of yourself, think it over once or twice. I could have forced you to stay here by never letting you kiss me, so instead of licking your wounded pride, go thank the heavens I'm not a selfish bastard like yourself."

He could feel Francis' eyes on himself – thank God for the lack of light that hid his flaming cheeks! – as the Frenchman processed what had just been said. Once again, silence filled the gap the unsaid words left between the two men, and this time even the horses were quiet. It was almost like time itself had stopped.

Then Francis opened his mouth. "Arthur," he said, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but-"

"You are wrong."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Francis repeated, this time slightly more emphatically, "but are you implying that you would actually like to have me here?"

_Yes,_ Arthur thought, and he also said so, albeit somewhat reluctantly; his defiance was starting to leak out of him.

"Hm," Francis said, sounding almost puzzled. "Then... why?"

"What do you care? You were in such a hurry to leave not half a minute ago."

"That was before you finally said something sensible. I want to hear your answer."

"Why?" Arthur mimicked, starting to feel uncomfortable again. Now that Francis actually showed interest in his answer, he became more and more unwilling to tell the truth – who knew what the frog was up to?

"Because your answer might change mine," Francis said, and Arthur felt a new tingling of what might be hope in the pit of his stomach. _Careful there_, he warned himself, _don't place your hopes too high. Otherwise you'll break your neck when you fall_.

"Well..?" Francis urged him, so Arthur shot.

"Because I think-" He swallowed. "Because I love you." There. All said.

First nothing happened, then Francis strode over to where the Englishman stood. "Arthur," he said. "Do you mean it?"

"I don't believe this is the best time for joking."

"I see." Arthur still couldn't see Francis' exact features, but he sensed how the whole appearance of the Frenchman changed; his breath came more lightly and his body seemed to be much more relaxed. "In that case, I find this all rather convenient."

Arthur didn't say anything; first, because he hardly dared hope, and second, because he didn't know what to say, anyway.

Francis smiled. "As it happens, I love you too," he clarified.

"Oh," Arthur said and looked to the ground.

To celebrate their mutual confession, awkward silence, as a rule, stretched between them. However, thankfully this time it didn't last that long.

"Well," Francis said, tentatively reaching for Arthur's hand. "It seems we get a happy ending after all, _oui_?" He gave a small squeeze to Arthur's hand, and Arthur responded to it by squeezing back. Neither of them quite comprehend yet what had happened, but Francis' touch, combined with a light-headed feeling that followed, made the Englishman act spontaneously: he leant forward and placed a small kiss on the Frenchman's lips. It was a light, almost a questioning kiss, but Francis was always quick to catch up with such matters. He placed his hand on the small of Arthur's back and pulled him in for another, longer kiss.

It was careful at first, but the longer it lasted, the more it convinced the young couple that everything was right after all and they had each other's permission to touch one another. When they broke apart, not a trace was left of the awkwardness between them. Vice versa; Arthur felt as if they had never even been apart. Because, damn it, it was _Francis,_ and he was there with him, and they had kissed, and there was no curse, and Francis would-

"Francis?" Arthur asked, only half-joking. "Can you not die during your trip, and come back home after all?"

"Mmm," was the mischievous reply. "It all depends on your answer."

"What answer?"

In response, the Frenchman knelt down on one knee and took Arthur's hand in his own. "I know that, technically, your hand is mine already, but I want you to grant it yourself, not by curses or orders." He smiled. "Arthur Kirkland, will you grace me with your hand and all of your kingdom?"

Arthur raised his eyebrow. "_All_ of the kingdom, Francis?"

"It's a yes or no."

"You-"

"Yes or no, Arthur."

"I- yes. _Yes_."

Francis laughed – laughed – and rose up to kiss Arthur again. "Good. Then I can return from my trip safely. Since I have a prince and a kingdom waiting."

"What a greedy man you are," Arthur mumbled into the Frenchman's embrace, trying not to grin too widely.

"Oh, but of course." Francis landed one of his hands firmly on Arthur's butt, earning a gratifying yelp from him. "Why settle with one hand only if you can have _the whole kingdom_?"

"Pervert," was all that Arthur had to say to that.

xXx

"See, it wasn't all that hard, was it?" King Lionheart said to his son in a tone that can only be used by someone who knows without any doubt himself to be right.

"What wasn't?" Arthur asked absently, twirling the wine in his cup and following Francis with his eyes. The Frenchman looked gorgeous, and it would be an understatement to say that he was in his element. He always was at balls, but now, in his own wedding celebration, he shone like a star, and his eyes sparkled like rays of sun sparkle in water.

"The short break you had from your beloved frogman when he was at his hunting. I told you as much."

Arthur rolled his eyes; his father didn't know even half of it. It was a lucky chance that Francis, on hearing about the curse from his friends, had decided to come and rage at Arthur. Otherwise King Lionheart would have had to realise that there had actually been a reason to Arthur's terrible mood in the days of Francis' absence. But the King needn't know everything.

"Goodness, boy," the King sighed exasperatedly. "Stop drooling after your prince charming."

"I'm not drooling!"

"You are. You look like a love-struck fool."

Arthur gasped. "I do not! It's just... the wine. Yes, the wine."

It was the King's turn to roll his eyes. "No more wine for you then. You keep gaping at him every time I look at you. Relax, son. He won't escape anywhere from here." Lionheart shrugged. "He had his chance on his hunting trip, poor soul, but he missed it. As expected of a frog, I suppose."

Arthur grimaced. Sometimes it felt like his father knew everything about what had been happening between Francis and him, and made his puns accordingly. But altogether, Arthur didn't take his father's remarks too seriously; the King had expressed his happiness for his son once that evening, he would not do it again.

"Which reminds me, I have to make sure all the arrangements are done." The father patted his son's shoulder, rose from his seat and left. Arthur remained on his own seat, watching people dance and drink and chatter. He spied Antonio laughing in a group of people, and even Gilbert and Romano were with them – apparently the Prussian had managed to sneak in the castle and even convince Romano to accompany him. The thought made Arthur grin; life in the castle was never going to be quite the same again, with Antonio, Gilbert and Francis all in the castle.

Speak of the devil, Arthur though when he saw the other star of the evening approaching him.

"I have been thinking," the Frenchman announced as soon as he reached the Englishman.

"You've got to be kidding me," Arthur snorted. "You, thinking? Never."

Francis elbowed him in the ribs. "That's pretty insolent, coming from you. Anyway," he continued before Arthur had a chance to come up with a retort, "It was very cruel of that frog to cast its curse. To subject any good Frenchman to such a fate is inhumane."

Arthur raised his eyebrow. "How good to hear you say that in our wedding celebration. How is it inhumane, pray pardon, to marry me?"

"Don't worry, Arthur." Francis leant to give him a peck on the cheek. "I returned here free-willingly."

"Then you must be a masochist," they heard the King say behind them. "Every rules needs to be, to some extent. Or then simply crazy. Be that as it may, however, I have made sure that all the arrangements in your bedchamber are done. Feel free to retreat there whenever you wish, and the sooner the better."

Both Francis and Arthur looked at the King, shocked by his straightforwardness. Lionheart lifted his eyebrow meaningfully. "What's with that look?" he asked. "I do hope you don't need me to explain to you what to do there and how."

Arthur blushed bright red – trust his father to embarrass him every chance he got! – but Francis recovered quickly and burst into laughter. "Oh, do not worry, my dearest _beau-père_. I am perfectly aware of my... responsibilities."

"That's what I thought," said the King.

And thus, despite everything, Francis and Arthur earned their happily ever after in the end. Their future together was, perhaps, not to be exactly _smooth_ all the time, but that's already another story. Let it just be said for now that they were to be happy nonetheless, and that is what truly matters.

xXx

Stars decorated the pitch black sky like countless little diamonds. Gilbert looked up at them and smiled; he had caught a glimpse of a shooting star. Not that there was anything unusual about it – even the stars fell before his awesomeness.

Alright, maybe he could make an exception this one time and admit that if the stars truly fell to celebrate humans, it was because of the awesomeness of not only him, but of his friends, too.

And, of course, of the awesomeness of a certain Italian, who walked beside Gilbert towards the stables after the wedding celebration. (He wasn't counted in friends, because soon enough he would become something much more than that. Even if he didn't know that yet.)

The thought reminded Gilbert of something. "Hey, Romano."

"What?"

"Remember when I promised to tell you all about something once something was over? That night at the stables when you caught me sneaking out?"

Romano looked at him with suspicion. "Yeah... what of it?"

Gilbert grinned. "Well, that something is over now."

"So..."

"So prepare yourself for the stupidest story ever! Hey, don't make that face, trust me, you'll get the best laugh in your whole life. So, once upon a time..."

X


End file.
